


My Horrific Adventures in the Land of Insanity

by HookLineSinker



Category: One Piece
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-04-01 12:06:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 60,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13997979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HookLineSinker/pseuds/HookLineSinker
Summary: When reading about a world with giants who fight for honor, people who get powers by just eating fruit and lighting shooting seashells, you tend to think, WOW. I REALLY want to be in that universe. Not. Why, you ask yourself? Because I'm in it now, and let me tell you, you do NOT want that. SI-OC fic.Cross posted on Fanfiction





	1. Chapter 1

CH.1

My Horrific Adventures in the Land of Insanity

By: Hook Line Sinker

Beta'ed by: Shattermirror, lavonlemonder

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece. I could only hope so. But I would ruin it somehow. Definitely.

Enjoy the (shitty) story.

Hi.

As you can probably tell by now, this is a story about a boy who decided to write a story about himself being placed into a universe where giants, mermaids, dragons and (possibly) unicorns exist. Obviously this shows how much acid that I, the creator of this story must have taken to achieve this level of hallucinations. Now as the normal self-insert goes, I must either be a college student who got bored or a middle aged person who... also got bored. Th-

SNAP!

Damnit.

CRASH!

Ow.

THUD!

"GODAMMIT! NOT AGAIN! USELESS DAMNED STICKS!" I howled, falling off the makeshift chair that was called a rock. I laid there on my back for a while, just- just staring at the beautiful blue sky, devoid of clouds. Had it been a normal beach, it would had crowded with tourists within the hour. However, that had brought me no relief, and somehow, by some hand of fate, it had made me even more pissed than I currently was.

I took a deep breath, and shouted towards the heavens.

"God, if you do exist, you're just mocking me now aren't you?"

... or I would've had I the energy to do so. Looking around to see if there was anything left of my room around me, I sighed as I failed. Again. I threw the branch back into the jungle and I glanced at the words that I painstakingly took time and love to carve into the sand.

...And there came a wave, destroying it completely. Fuck.

I should start again since the voices in my head tell me to and as a desperate attempt to protect my sanity (or what's left of it).

I sighed. I suppose I should tell you how I came to this predicament.

5 hours ago...

There I was. Still naively wrapped up in my little bubble, playing games and reading manga. Not at the same time though, since I was still bad at playing games. I finished off another game of (Insert well known Game here) - losing quite badly, I might add. This had only

pissed me off and I decided to give myself some time to let off steam by shuffling my deck of cards and checking my email-

THUNK!

"Fuck!" I yelped as my entire cup of steaming hot tea splashed onto my poor defenceless foot. Hopping on my other foot and clutching said unfortunate limb, I failed to notice I was approaching my dresser and slammed my head onto the wooden surface. Hard.

Needless to say, as I lay on the ground, I was not at all calm. Getting up to try to find some ice for my throbbing head, I heard the tell-tale noise of receiving a new email from someone. Rolling my eyes at my luck, I turned towards my desk to find a black post-it note that I was pretty sure wasn't there a second ago.

Cautiously glancing at my room to make sure I wasn't going to get killed via Jumpscare by a stuffed, haunted Chuck. E Cheese ripoff, I picked up the note.

"Have you ever wanted to get sucked into a portal to the grand, wonderfully insane world of One Piece?"

Blinking at the absurd message, I deadpanned, "Seeing as to how this note just appeared on my desk via teleportation," I said out loud to the empty air, carefully faking nonchalance. "I can tell that this is either a very good prank or that SOMEONE SOMEHOW RENOVATED MY APARTMENT INTO A HOUSE OF ILLUSION WHILE I WAS PLAYING LEAGUE OF LEGE-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, DUDE!" Ah, there was my asshole neighbor Nicholas, who had yet to return my kindly lended toaster, as he shouted through the wall.

"SORRY!" I replied insincerely, rolling my eyes. "Returning to what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted: if there isn't an entire team recording me for a prank video and I haven't taken drugs, this is actually for real."

PING!

Turning towards my desk I saw a portal slowly closing in on itself. It was round, fog like, purply-blue and I decided that this was real. There was a funny feeling in my toes.

Oh wait, that was just my jaw hitting them.

"Turn around kiddo"

"Please don't be a jump scare PLEASE don't be a jump scare please don't be a jump sca-"

"Boo."

"OH SHITSTICKS, PLEASE DON'T KILL ME I HAVE A WIFE AND CHILDREN AND SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!"

Praying for a quick death, I stood stock still, paralyzed by fear. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for my imminent demise.

I waited… And waited... And waited some more.

Finally, I coughed up some courage and I slo-o-o-owly cracked open an eye to seek the cause of my mini heart failure and my jaw promptly dropped to my toes once again.

It was a brightly glowing figure in the shape of a man (or woman, I couldn't say) without any discernible facial features other than its cheerful "D" shaped smile. I could see where he- she- it?- hovered in mid air but the black lines that outlined its body made it seem like it had been dragged straight out of a comic. Apart from a top hat of obsidian and a white staff topped by a smooth, black oval stone adorning it, it was completely naked. But surprisingly, the "thing" wasn't what was bothering me.

It was the stone.

How should I start? For starters, the stone was mesmerizing. It was the blackest thing I had ever seen, I didn't even know that there could be something that dark a color and it seemed to suck in all the light in the room, somehow glowing black to my eyes. I guess the best way to describe it would be to say it was a hole. I knew that it wasn't, seeing as it was a stone, but that's the best way I can describe it without blowing anyone's mind. It felt like I was standing before a gateway into space and something had wrapped ethereal arms around my mind and was trying to pull me in. It was taking all of my willpower to resist reaching out to touch the stone to see what would happen.

That was when I realized that the "thing" was still smiling.

"So your choice is?"

{ A problem has been detected and ALEX has been shut down to prevent damage to his brain.

IRQL_COSMIC_BEING_EXE_WANTS_TO _SEND_ALEX_TO_UNKNOWN_AREA

If this is the first time you've seen this error, restart ALEX. If this error bubble appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new organs/ pieces of knowledge are properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask Alex's sister or Alex's father for any further updates needed.

If the problem continues, disable/ remove any newly installed organs/ pieces of knowledge. Disable brain options such as peripheral vision or body coordination if needed. If operation on ALEX is needed to remove or install body parts, restart ALEX, position him on an operating table to get better access, then inject an anesthetic.

Medical information :

*** STOP: 0x0000000A (0x0000000000005D , 0x0000000000046 , 0x000000000045)

Collecting data for crash dump...

Initializing short term memory for crash dump...

Beginning dump of physical memory...

Dumping physical memory to short term memory :

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0 }

I stared blankly at the "thing" for a few seconds. The thought processes in my brain seemed to have cranked to a temporary halt.

Then my subconscious decided to stop the joke and dumped oil in. My mental gears began moving again. The cogs rotated slowly at first, then slowly started to warm up, allowing me to process the "thing's" question.

Ah.

I realized what had just happened.

And with that, I fainted onto the cold, hard, floor.

August 24, 2017 Edit:

Shattermirror: After Hook Line Sinker (whom I will now call HLS) had posted nine chapters of this fic, he came to me and asked me to read it. I told him bluntly that the grammar was horrible and there were horrific amounts of plot holes in it, but that the inspiration was there and the ideas were good. So, in order to rescue this fic, I will first re-vamp the currently posted chapters to better form, then continue editing his chapters for him. To readers already following this story, this just means the content and plot will mostly be the same and I'll just be correcting stuff here and there. To new readers, some chapters will have better quality than later ones. To readers who start this fic after all nine chapters have been edited, this note isn't really relevant.

Anything more to add, HSL?

HSL: For starters, Thank you. Next, I feel completely horrible and I want to die due to me feeling like a non contributing asshat who just dumped all the work onto Shattermirror. That will be it.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.

Edit: August 26, 2017

I regained consciousness slowly, blinking drowsily. It was strangely quiet- no noises from the cars passing in the street, silence from the usually irritatingly loud morning routine of my next door neighbor and not even the background hum of the electronics in my house. Then I remembered what had happened just before I'd fainted, images flashing through my brain. As I started to piece together about what had happened, the heavenly scent of Earl Gray tea drifted to my nose.

Oh, hell no. Nobody touched my tea. Especially not my favorite. I was a man of great patience but with when somebody touched my tea? Someone was going to get hurt real bad. Someone was going to die a horrible, brutal wicked death today.

Angrily, I got up and decided to do my best "HERE'S JOHNNY" impression before beating the living shi-

...Wait.

I froze as the niggling suspicions that had been in the back of my brain decided to hit me full on. Like a freight train.

It was never quiet in my dorm floor. Never.

Rubbing my eyes open, I took in the scenery around me. Or the lack of it anyway. I was in surrounded by nothing but the dark. Normally I didn't mind the dark, but there was something...

Peculiar

about it.

I could neither hear nor see anything. I raised a hand to see myself to make sure that I wasn't blind and to my surprise I could see my hand, clear as day. That was when it hit me. This wasn't the dark, this was pure nothingness.

Walking in no particular direction, I stopped when I heard the tapping of my bare feet, yet felt nothing but thin air beneath my feet. Reaching down to touch the "floor", I fell backwards on my ass upon realizing that there was nothing below me, yet there was still something supporting me.

"Is this Limbo ?" I asked no one in particular.

"No, but it's close enough."

"GAH!"

Turning around so fast I gave myself whiplash I saw the "thing" next to a kettle that gave off the familiar scent of my favorite tea.

"By the way, that's not how you do a "Here's Johnny" impression." it told me with a chuckle. "And I would like to see you try to land even the slightest blow on me.

"Also, I like to add that A) You don't have kids or a wife, and B) shitsticks? Really? Of all the words you could have said in meeting something alien and not from your world, you said shitsticks?" The "thing" laughed.

"Now onto business. Would you like one sugar or two sugars in your tea? Or would you prefer milk?"

Now adjusted to the wrongness of the its appearance, I noticed how velvety its voice was and how it seemed ancient, full of power. The "thing's" voice told me that it was not someone that you ever wanted to get on the bad side of.

"Uh, milk please?" I asked hesitantly making sure that I was polite as not to incur the wrath of this "thin-"

"For starters, I'm not a "thing", I am an omniscient being with immense power that has been undefeated by everything except for boredom. I have never killed anything in my many millenniums without good reason. And before you ask me - yes I can read minds. Your dreams are quite fucked up though. You should really thank your subconscious for never letting you remember them.

"I don't wish to hurt you, and I can send you back to your life you are right now, but I would hate to have to rewrite your memories of this encounter." He continued, pouring milk as he spoke. I noticed his staff was gone as well.

"Um, what should I call you then?" I asked it.

With a shrug of its shoulders - "Meh, just call me Adam. Please sit-"

And with a flick of his wrist, a couch popped into existence.

" -because your tea's getting cold."

Blushing slightly, I picked up the teacup. I stared at it, letting the weight of what was actually happening hit me. I was having tea with a millennia old being, having a conversation on the subject of transferring me into a world that only existed in fiction.

I snorted to myself as I sipped my tea.

Adam began to walk slowly around me, his arms crossed behind his back as he continued speaking.

"Now that you've calmed down, I would like to offer you a choice. Since we are in my realm, time has no meaning whatsoever. Take all the time you need to think about this. It will change your life, for better or worse. I am, in fact, much nicer than most other deities in this field and I am willing to give you a choice on wh-"

"Other deities?" I whispered "There are other gods like you?"

"No. Simply put, we are not gods and never will be. We are merely parts of his creation and our job is to, well, put simply- continue existing. But that's not for you to worry about." He said, patting my head, almost patronisingly.

"Continue existing? Then why are you talking to me?" I blurted out, "I'm just a guy with too much time on his hands to do anything but faff around all day lon-"

"That's exactly why I chose you." He said with a smile. Looking away bashfully, he continued "And due to random chance."

And there went my hope that I was chosen by God.

He clapped his hands and a checklist appeared floating before him.

"Let's see… You're great with both chemistry and and technology, but are too lazy to enroll in any courses; your ability to throw cards is quite phenomenal and you should really consider a profession in it; your hobbies used to include being a pyromaniac, building things and reading. But now after her death," I clenched my hands. "You just sit there, doing nothing.

"Just from that alone, I can tell for a fact that you could be so much more if you just had the will to do it."

"Excuse me?"

"The point of that was to tell you just how much more you could achieve, if you just put the effort into it. Just through that you could experience so much more than what you currently have. " He sighed again.

"But that's not what I want to talk about. I'm not your father so I have no right to say anything about that. You are a grown man and you have the right to your own path."

I nervously nodded my head, silently ashamed.

"Here's my offer. If you refuse, I will transport you back into your world with just the memory of what happened in a dream. Of course you will say, "Oh it was just a dream" and move on with your life.

However, if you say 'yes' to my offer I will grant you exactly... Hm, let's say five minutes to pack the things that you want into this-"

He pulled a simple black backpack from nothing, embellished with stars.

"-Which can contain anything as you wish, as long as you can carry it."

But I still had a pang of curiosity."Adam, I still don't understand why you want me to enter this world. For what reason would a being like you want to send someone into a different world?"

Even without any features on his face, I could tell he was raising an eyebrow at me.

"Let's just say I'm a bored omniscient, omnipotent being and your adventure down in that universe will be my entertainment. And I like giving people second chances and a clean state. It's always fun to see what they do with it." He said with a hint of a smile.

"What about the deal? I don't believe that there would be no repercussions if I could leave this place or that I can freely travel between both worl-"

"That's the fun part. If you reach to Raftel, the last island of the Grand Line - without dying, of course - I will grant you the power to travel between both worlds and you will receive a certain gift from me."

I was still not convinced. Raising a eyebrow, I said, "That's... weirdly generous of you."

And there was the shit-eating grin. "Naw… I just don't want my prime-time entertainment becoming a goddamn Tokyo Ghoul emo shit crying about his family half the damn time." he replied with a smirk.

I opened my mouth to retort, but slowly closed it again. "Fair point." I relented grudgingly.

"Now choose wisely kid."

You probably already know which path I decided to take by now, and expect me to carry on my journey without further ado, huh?

So I was returned home in the blink of an eye.

If normal people could say how their last few minutes of Earth were like, they would normally describe them as heart-breaking or peaceful. In this case?

To sum up my last five minutes on Earth, it could be described with a single word:

Shit.

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit-

"Where did I put it?" I muttered frantically to myself, trying not to panic and failing completely as I searched for my encyclopedia of poisonous mushrooms, running around blindly.

As soon as I'd returned to Earth the first thing I thought was: 'Who the hell slipped me acid?'

My next thought consisted of: 'How did they manage to slip me goddamn acid?'

And the one after that was: 'Why the fuck did they slip me acid?'

That was when I saw the timer next to my head and heard the ominous voice counting down with it, I promptly started running towards my bedroom and printing all the knowledge on the internet about One Piece.

Letting the machine do it's job, I rushed back into my bedroom and began rifling through my drawer, looking for any camping materials that I had left there and decidedly not looking at the the literal timer to my demise floating right behind me about to screw me over-

CALM YOUR DAMN BALLS.

'Think calmly Alex', I thought to myself. 'There's still time. There's no need to panic. Now if I were a Swiss Army knife, where would I be? Think rationally and carefu-'

"WELL I DON'T FUCKING KNOW I'M AN FUCKING INANI-FUCKIN-MATE OBJECT WHO HAS SHARP BITS, SO WHERE THE FUCK COULD I BE?"

"IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP THE FUCK UP I'll FUCKING BEAT YOU UP!" My asshole of a neighbor hollered.

"Oh stuff a sock in it, you goddamn drunkard..." I muttered as I continued rifling through my belongings- Ah-ha! There it was, next to my makeshift flamethro-

"Two minutes and counting" the Timer's monotone voice disrupted my feeling of victory.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCC-

Tripping over a bump in the floor brought me back to Earth again. At first glance, that bump seemed to just be some lose flooring, but at further notice, it was my secret hideout for my, well, everything.

That got me remembering where I left the rest of my P.A.N.I.C gear (Panicking And Not In Control).

Gripping the floorboards like it was my lifeline, I pried it up. It hit me in my face. Ow. At this rate, I would have more self induced injuries than my sister, who was a complete klutz. Pulling the dust covered bag out and discovered, to my relief, there was a entire water filtration system in it and even a 20 pack of filtration pills. Basic medical supplies were included as I threw the whole bag into the 'enchanted backpack'.

Taking some of the books off my drawer, I packed the as many clothes and toiletries as I could fit in and checking my printer, I took whatever notes were done and stuffed them in my bag. I picked up my old bo staff, leaning on the wall, that I used as a child to try to impress my (entirely unimpressed) friends.

Squeezing the middle of the stick would cause the metal bar to close on in itself, from a meter and a half to being able to fit neatly in my hand. Hoping that it was an appropriate weapon to use in the world of One Piece, I started praying to whatever deity that watched over little boys being sucked into different worlds for a safe journey.

I truly hoped that I didn't die from malnutrition. That would be a shit way to die in a fictional universe.

Then I looked around in my living room, hoping that I hadn't forgotten anything important and glanced at myself in the mirror. Long and messy brown hair fell in heterochromatic eyes on a face that some called androgynous. I stepped back to look at myself. (Did I look cool enough for One Piece?)

Tying a white travel jacket around my waist, I reached down to adjust my red steel toed combat boots. I had been wearing my PJs, but had quickly pulled on dark green jeans and a simple blue T-shirt with a white 'X' on the back.

Picking up my cap from the windowsill, I wondered if this was the last time that I'd ever see this room again.

"10 seconds."

You can probably tell by now, but this was really not how I expected to spend my last few minutes on Earth. I had planned a grand speech, saying how I didn't regret a moment of my life but now I realized that wouldn't have been the truth. But that was before I'd met an omniscient, omnipotent being. I was now determined to make a change in the new universe that I was stepping into no matter how small or large it was, I was making sure to start a new chapter in my life.

"Five seconds."

Aw, shit.

As I rushed up towards my room making sure that I had left nothing behind I saw the portal open in front of me.

How to describe it? Imagine the air shimmering in front of you, turning a white color as it begins to fold in on itself in a cube like structure, swirling in a circular motion around a black glowing circle. Where the two opposing colors collided was a dull grey. Try to picture yourself swirling milk into a cup of tea with one straw, while moving a second in the opposite direction and you get the general gist of it.

I stepped back as the portal expanded and felt my hair being blown around while the items in my room were still.

Hovering slightly above the floor was a little black footstool leading up to the portal. Bidding my room a last "Fare thee well", I gathered my courage, took a step back and ran into the portal.

Weeks later, on Earth without Alex..,

Police were baffled how a nineteen year old boy could have vanished into thin air, having seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth. The occupant of the next room over, Nicholas Smith, said, "The girlish boy was always weird." So he hadn't thought too much about the muffled explosion, nor the shouting that had happened beforehand.

The apartment had a layer of dust as if no one had ever lived in it for quite a long time. The only thing left in the apartment was a printer on a black desk, with pages of information about a Japanese manga called "One Piece" and a note printed out last on top of the stack.

'To whomever it may concern, Alex is on vacation and will be returning in a short while.'


	3. Chapter 3

People often say, 'Look before you leap.'

I used to laugh at that advice and reply with a cocky: "If I could see the dangers ahead, why would I walk in that direction?"

I should've taken their advice and not run headfirst into the sky.

When I tried to turn around in midair to grasp onto the edge of the portal, I discovered that to my horror (and likely Adam's entertainment), the portal had vanished already, leaving me to fall to my doom.

Some say that at your last moments you are at your bravest, allowing death to cart you to the unknown and finally end the story of your life.

Others say that you are at your wisest, that having the knowledge of everything that had happened to you just makes you that much smarter.

I would've liked to say that I faced my demise head on, smiling at Death. But I wasn't brave. So as the the wind throttled me, I will openly admit that I cried the whole way down. (LIKE YOU COULD DO ANY BETTER?!)

In a weirdly ironic way, it was peaceful. The wind around me buffected me and tumbled down, the rush of air filling my ears. I only had a few words left that I wanted to share with the world:

"Oh fuck. ShitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT! Please God why!? I donated to charity, I helped old people, I DON'T KICK PUPPIES OR KITTENS AND I DON'T SET THINGS ON FIRE ANYMORE! Why why why why why why why whywhywhywhywhywhy WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO MEEEEEEEEEE….!"

That was the main gist of the words that left my mouth. That's why this story is T-rated, kiddies. Me and my potty mouth.

Eventually, as the clouds started to dissipate around me, I got a glimpse of the world that I currently thought would be my grave and last resting place.

As far as the eye could see, there was only the sea, with a lone island (which I was on a direct course towards). As I neared the ground, I noticed the white sand on the shores, a glimmering river, a waterfall in the centre of the island and the green shrubbery of what had to be a forest that I would soon be very well acquainted with.

With no prospect but death leering in front of me, I resorted to my last fail safe. Something that no one could take away from me.

BeINg coMpLetELy ANd IrRAtioNAlly iNsAne.

I started contemplating on how to make my death look as fabulous as possible, considering blood splatter, organ to field ratio, and how far you could walk away while still able to see my body spread across the forest like a messed-up version of jam on toas-

THE FOREST!

(Hello, sanity, I'm back.)

My eyes widened as I remembered that the branches could break my fall, and a forest floor covered in leaves on dirt could provide a form of cushioning, while rocks would certainly provide death on impact. While placing my backpack in front of my stomach, I turned towards the forest, using it as a makeshift shield that could have block some minor damage.

Hooking my backpack on my waistline, I gripped my jacket and put it on, while holding the edges of the fabric. Now I had a shitty parachute, and I braced myself for the incom- 'OH GOD ITS COMING AT ME SO FAS-'

CRASH!

Ouch.

-o-

Bright rays of sunlight awoke me, causing me to groan loudly. For starters, my everything hurt and I had just the weirdest dream-

What the hell? Last time I checked, I had all my curtains pulled, my bed was much softer than this and wind and rustling leaves were certainly not a presence in my room.

Sitting up, I immediately noticed the coolness of the air and the leafy fragrance. Opening my eyes, I gasped at the sight of the green foliage around me which confirmed my suspicions. I was in a forest. But more importantly:

I. Was. Alive.

"Ha! Fuck yeah!" I shouted out, ecstatic on how I survived the fall. I patted myself down to make sure that I still had full control of my limbs and there they were! Two legs and two arms, good as ne- then I noticed the bloody mess that was my left arm.

That was when my arm voiced its displeasure in a very emphatical manner. I winced at how raw it was and how many layers of skin that had been scraped off to reach that state. It seemed like a flesh wound and looked worse than it felt, but I wasn't taking any chances.

I looked over myself and to my relief, the arm was the only thing wrong with me, other than the various cuts and bruises that littered my body.

Looking upwards, I saw what must have been the path of my entrance into the lush green wilderness that currently surrounded me. I was right, the leaves and smaller branches did cushion my fall to some extent, but the larger branches withstood my weight, and I had only broken two of them.

As the last remnants of sleep were beaten to death, I stood up and realized that the bag that had broken my fall had been completely undamaged. The black backpack seemed good as new, but my clothes on the other hand..

Let's just say that they'd been torn to not much more than rags. The only salvageable things from my clothes was my underwear (thank God for that), white (muddy!) jacket and my (very durable) boots.

First things first. Fix my arm.

I took off my jacket and stuffed the many pockets with as many leaves as I could fit, and wrapped it around my arm. It still stung and I would need to clean it up with water as fast as I could to prevent infection. Tying the sleeves around my shoulder, it made for a really shitty but workable sling. I didn't complain. After all, I could hardly afford to be picky at this time.

I decided to go find the waterfall that I saw on the long way down. Fast moving water had lower chances of being contaminated and the last thing I needed was internal infection ravaging my poor body.

I put on my backpack on my right shoulder, extended my bo staff to its full height, turned in a random direction and started walking. Squirrels scurried around searching for food under the leaves, but ran as I approached. Fallen berries lay ripening under the canopy of the trees and I was relieved that there seemed to be a stable source of food. The grass was green and lush under my feet and as I looked around I noticed the trees were tall as skyscrapers.

The scent of mud, green leaves and ancient wood filled my lungs and I felt at peace

But the pain of my arm brought me back to reality and it wasn't long before I heard the thundering sound of rushing water. After walking through a clearing, voila! There it was. The waterfall sparkled like crystals in the sun, and as it tumbled onto the rocks below, the river it fed stretching into the distance.

Throwing my bag to the ground, I pulled off my sling and after taking off my shirt, I braced myself and pushed my arm through the curtain of cascading water.

I clenched my teeth down on a scream of pain, but it seemed as if my suspicions were correct. It was only a flesh wound. As I let the water drip off, I pulled my P.A.N.I.C bag from the backpack and rummaged through it with my good arm until I felt the cool glass bottle of rubbing alcohol. Popping open the cap with my thumb, I stared at the clear liquid and took a deep breath. This was only going to hurt. A lot.

-o-

After I sterilized the wound, I inspected the skin carefully and pulled out a couple of splinters. After painfully extracting all wood from my arm, I decided to dip into my limited supply of gauze and bandages and after a few quick knots, my arm was in workable condition. Relief welling up inside me, I let out a breath that I didn't know I'd been holding.

I decided to make an inventory check now that I was in a relatively safe place. Tilting my backpack on its side, I counted out everything.

A single medical kit, a book on poisonous mushrooms and flowers, a retractable telescope, three bottles of water and five cans of tin food. Then there were was a solar powered flashlight and solar panel fan, two personal books, a single red shirt and camouflage pants, two pairs of underwear, and a camping bag.

On hand, I had my bo staff, two Swiss Army knives, and my special pack of metallic throwing cards.

I sighed. With barely the essentials, this was going to be a hard journey.

-o-

As night fell, I decided to camp near the waterfall, which glimmered in the moonlight. It was an unconventional source of light, but that was enough to satisfy me for now.

Looking up towards the silvery orb in the sky, I felt a strange sense of calm . Smiling as the countless stars above twinkled brightly and rays of silver descended from the sky onto the sea, I couldn't help but be glad at the adventure I was living.

I closed my eyes in contentment and fell asleep to the soothing sounds of the waterfall.

But had I not closed my eyes, I would have seen something more than just light descend from the moon.

When morning came, so did a pang of hunger. I decided to find some fruit before exploring the island, and as I trekked through the greenery, I stumbled upon a grove of peach trees.

Grinning wildly at my luck, I plucked a few and bit into the soft flesh of the fruit and sighed as the cool, sweet juices ran down my throat. Picking a few more and placing them in my jacket, I decided that I would start drawing my mental map at the beach.

The island was small, I noted as I hacked through some vines with my Bo. I realized that it only took me mere minutes to get to the beach. Upon reaching the edge of the island I looked out over the sea, and hoped Adam had placed me upon an island that the Strawhats would soon pass by.

I really hoped that I didn't have to create my own canoe and surf towards the nearest island with civilization. As I turned back into the forest to finish my camp, I caught, in the corner of my eye, the glimmer of something unnatural.

Turning towards the source of mystery, I saw a black pillar. And at the foot of the pillar sat a large, silver chest on a pedestal.

I hesitantly circled around the pillar, unsure of whether or not it was a trap of some sort. The pillar had ornate symbols and patterns carved upon it that seemed to depict people from a civilisation that had lived here long ago, worshipping a figure that gazed at them from above.

The silver chest bore the same strange symbols and images of fruits with circles on them. The back of the pillar showed that the people had found the strange fruits and placed them in a box, or the chest before me, as a offering to their deity.

It took my brain ten whole minutes to realize what it meant.

"I'm a fucking idiot." I muttered as I palmed my face in exasperation with myself.

Taking a deep breath, I reached down and picked up the chest. The instant the chest was lifted off the pedestal, both it and the pillar turned to black sand, which was blown away in the wind in seconds. I stared after the sand for a few heartbeats, then placed the chest onto a piece of flat stone nearby and knelt down before it, then carefully pried open the lid.

From inside the chest floated a black note with very familiar handwriting on it. I plucked it out of the air, and read out loud.

"Well done on surviving the fall, I knew you could have done it. I feel bad for placing a fragile, little thing like you in that situation, but I needed to make sure you were worthy. Anyways, inside the chest should be something that I think you will enjoy. Since you are just a fragile human from outside this universe, I thought you could use a upgrade of sorts."

Flipping the note over, I continued but as I kept reading, my face started to pale.

"I don't care if you barely remember the story at all, so I did you the favor of throwing the printed papers away.

"Love, Adam

"…"

Peering into the box I found Adam's 'gift' easily.

After all, it would have been hard to miss the only contents of the box, a lone...

Devil Fruit.


	4. Chapter 4

How to describe a devil fruit?

Put simply, it was mesmerizing.

The blood-colored fruit was the size of a golf ball, and had the same feel to it as well. The skin of the fruit seemed glossy to the eye, but felt rough to the skin. The stalk was curled and a rich earth brown. And the patterns on the skin?

I tried to follow one of the lines, I really did, but my eyes always seemed to slide off. It may have been a trick of the light, but until the day I died, I would've sworn the patterns seemed to ripple and billow, as if they were the waves themselves, even as I held the fruit as still as possible.

I was speechless.

Seriously, what was I supposed to say?

A fruit that could you give powers to anything was literally in the palm of my hand. I remembered that there were only three types of devil fruit. Paramecia, Zoan and Logia.

Logia was the most powerful, I noted as I absentmindedly traced my finger along the patterned fruit.

The ability to shift your own body mass into anything, like smoke or magma was powerful enough, but to also can control that 'anything' was just the icing on the overpowered cake. Zoan's, as the name depicted, turned you into some type of animal, the most powerful being the Mythical Zoan models as I recalled Sengoku's "Buddha" fruit and Marco's "Phoenix" fruit. Finally, Paramecia fruits could be anything at all, the most mysterious of the three.

I knew I was going to eat the fruit no matter what. I was bad at swimming already, and the chances that I would become weaker after eating the fruit were slim to none. As a certain Shichibukai would say, 'Depending on how you use and train the ability of the Devil Fruit... Even the seemingly weakest of powers can become a strong weapon in battle.'

I pondered it for a minute, but hey, I was already reckless enough. Down the hatch we go!

I plugged my nose, stuffed it in my mouth...

"..."

...And promptly spat it out, voicing my disgust vehemently.

"Sweet Christ on a bloody pikestaff, WHAT THE FUCK?!

"What the fuck was that taste? Sweet baby Jesus, I had rotten eggs once as a bet and even they tasted nice compared to this shit! I didn't even bite it! Not only was rancid, it was filthy and would be immoral to let anyone eat it EVER AGAIN!"

GAH, that thing wasn't even worthy of being called food, much less a fruit. As far as I was concerned, eating that and never letting anyone taste that again was nothing short of achieving world fucking peace!

Bleh, I needed some barbed wire, bleach and motor oil to get rid of that taste. As my mouth attempted to create a mini World War II, I scooped up and some water and swilled it around my mouth, trying to wash out that god-awful taste in my mouth.

I stared at the berry, as it innocently sat in my hand, oblivious to the fact that it had just committed a terrible crime to all food everywhere.

I tilted my head upwards so it would fall directly down my throat.

Glup!

Ugh. Somehow without it even touching my tongue, I could still taste it. But it was still better than eating it directly. Pulling a face, I drank even more water to rid my mouth of the remnants of the fruit.

Sitting back down on the sand, I let my actions of the last few minutes hit me.

I had powers.

I had powers.

Grinning gleefully, I rubbed my hands together, ready to try out my new powers.

Which led me to remember I had no idea what my powers were.

...Shit.

-o-

The next few days consisted me following the same routine:

Wake up.

Meditate.

Eat fruits.

Try to figure out what my power was.

Fail horrendously.

Mope on the beach praying for a guide.

Scream at the moon for not giving me a guide.

Be kept up all night by my mind running at light speed.

Sleep at the crack of dawn.

You know, the usual.

I tried throwing rocks upwards and trying to hit myself to see if I was a Logia (Which failed and led me to giving myself a few new bruises to add to my growing collection) or concentrating on different animals to try to transform (Which also failed and led me to looking constipated half the time).

It was only when I farted for the fourth time (from concentrating too hard), that I realized that I had to be some type of paramecia, and that my powers could have been anything.

The closest that I had got was when I tried concentrating on my breathing, (deep in, deep out) on the beach and a few grains of sand seemed to fly towards my open palm. But when I tried again, nothing happened. Not that I could have controlled sand, since Crocodile had that particular fruit. Goddamn it, I needed knowledge of what my fruit did to control it!

Sighing again at my horrible luck, I decided to meditate again at the peak of the beach where the leafy fortress met the sand. Sitting cross-legged under the shade of a large coconut tree, I closed my eyes and began to flex different muscles one at a time, in hopes that something would happen.

The scent of the forest engulfed my senses, allowing me to calmly restore my stamina, while the sounds of the sea drowned out the sound of everything else. I exhaled deeply, utterly at peac-

"HEY! Are you a girl or a boy?"

Say what now?

Snapping my eyes open, the first thing I saw was the face of a boy with wide eyes and a very familiar scar.

"Holy shit!"

As I quickly scampered backwards into a tree, the back of my head hit the trunk so hard, a coconut fell and hit me on my head.

"Ow, fuck!"

"Shishishi!" Luffy snickered,"You are really funny, miss!"

"Thanks, I guess?" I ground out as I brushed the sand off my pants, wincing at the bump that was blossoming upon my skull. Taking his held-out hand, I pulled myself up.

"Thank you... Uh-"

"It's Luffy! Monkey D. Luffy! Nice to meet ya, miss!"

I shot him a deadpan look, "I am a boy, Luffy. Not a girl."

"What? No way! You look like a girl though!"

Grumbling, I looked behind him and to my surprise, of the people approaching, there were only the members of the original East Blue crew. If there had been others, they would probably be there as well.

"How many people do you have in your crew?"

"Oh, we've only got five people, right now. Me, my swordsman, navigator, sharpshooter and cook." he counted off on his fingers. He grinned, "I want a musician next!"

Huh. So they'd probably just left the Conami Isles.

"Well, what brings you here to this lonely little island, Luffy?

Luffy shrugged, "My crew were running low on food, so we came here to resupply! How about you- uh-"

I smiled back, "It's Alex, and you and your crew are...?"

"Oh! We're pirates!"

My mind raced for a second. Most people would be wary of such a title. "Pirates? Do you mean the adventurous type or the pillage, burn and kill everyone you see type?"

Luffy frowned. "The first one of course! Any pirate of the second type is just a stupid idiot!"

I grinned and held out my hand. "I should re-introduce myself then. I am Alexander Jones, for short, Jack of all trades, and island stowaway. Born and raised in the Grand Line. But call me Alex."

I punctuated my last syllable by extending my bo staff with a flourish.

His eyes widened, "Cool! How did you do that?"

Retracting it again, I smirked at him, "A hair trigger mechanism located in the middle of the barrel, allowing me to extend the bo staff to its full extent and dislodging anything stuck between."

"Oh, so it's a mystery staf- ow!"

"I'm so sorry for our idiot captain. Was he bothering you?"

I stared at the orange haired woman, who had approached us while we were talking and punched him in the head, "Isn't he your captain? Uh... Won't he get mad at you?"

Scoffing, Nami continued "This idiot barely has any common sense. For all we know, you could've been a serial killer!" She backtracked, "No offense meant to you."

Luffy sat up."Hey Alex, join my crew!"

A trio of angry voices bellowed from the beach, voicing their displeasure. "WHAT?"

"Stop asking-" Ouch, even I felt that. "-every other person that we meet to join-" Good lord! "your-" Now that has really got to hurt… "CREW!"

There was a string of throbbing pink lumps on the top of his noggin and I stared at them with a sort of horrified fascination.

"But Nami-" Luffy whined "He has a mystery staff, comes from the Grand Line and is a Jacker of traitors!"

"It's actually Jack of all trades, Luffy" I added helpfully.

"Who the hell cares!?"

Looking back at his crew as Nami tried her best to drive Luffy twelve feet into the ground, I turned to them. "Are they always like this?"

The suit wearing blond - Sanji! - placed his arm around my shoulders with a sigh.

"He decided to refuse my refusal to join his crew, then destroyed the place I lived and worked for since I was a kid. In an hour. And sweet Nami is a very passionate and logical lady."

He took another drag of his cigarette,"Does that answer your question?"

I winced at the brutal spectacle. Oh Christ, the poor guy.

"Are you not going to help him though? Any normal person would be dead by this point." Nami continued to ram his head into a tree trunk.

Sanji blew his lung killing smoke into the wind and Zoro continued in his place.

"He'll be fine, he ate a Devil fruit and is made from rubber. That's tame by Nami's normal standards."

Turning back to the pair, and if I hadn't seen the beating that Nami just gave him, I would have thought he wasn't human anymore, judging how his body was twisted into a knot.

Looking at me with a bored stare, Zoro raised an eyebrow. "Oi, witch!"

"What did you just call me!?" "What did you just call her, moss-head!?" The navigator and cook screeched in unison.

"She looks to be a normal girl-"

"Oi! I am male!"

"Relatively normal, at least, and it doesn't look like she actually lives here. Why not?"

(Those were not normal people sounds, those were demon screeches.)

"Watch your mouth when you're talking to Nami-swan, moss-head!" Sanji launched himself at the swordsman, who blocked the kick with the sheath of his sword.

"Shut it, pervert-cook!"

"What did you just call me!?"

"I'm not repeating shit to you, love-cook!"

As I blankly watched the combination of Luffy trying to unknot his rubber body and the cook and swordsman breaking into a fighting complete with full force kicks and drawn swords…

"Don't insult dare insult Nami-swan, you SHITTY SWORDSMAN!"

"Bring it, DARTBOARD-BROW!"

….I began to fear for my sanity. I turned to the long-nosed sniper and repeated my question...

"Are you guys always like this?"

...Only to find Usopp quivering in a tree at the vicious "scuffle" less than two feet away.

Pinching the bridge of my nose I muttered beneath my breath, "What the hell is this crew?"

-0-

After a while, the chaos died down so I asked Luffy about his motives.

"If you are pirate of adventures, what's your goal?"

Luffy placed his straw hat upon his head before turning to me,"That's easy! Shishishi..." He gave me the (in)famous 'D' smile.

"I'm going to become the next King of Pirates!"

To this day, I am still not sure what had happened. Time seemed to stop as the force of his words hit me. I don't know if it was his Conquerors Haki or simply pure charisma and confidence, but the words seemed so filled with force that I was sent reeling back. I couldn't help but just stop and stare before sighing and smiling sheepishly at him."Then how in the world could I refuse your offer?"

"Goddammit, Luffy…"

"Wouldn't've been Luffy if it weren't insane, though, huh?"

"Sorry Nami-swan but I have to agree with the shitty marimo for once."

"As acting vice-captain of the straw-hat pirates, I shall allow this." Usopp concluded smugly.

Nami sighed, but extended her hand to me,"Well, I'm Nami, and the navigator for this crew."

Shaking it, I smiled nervously, remembering how she had just beaten Luffy's head in and tied him into literal knots. "I'm Alex. Alex Jones. Nice to meet you Nami, I see you're the logical one of your crew."

Nodding at me, she glanced over her shoulder. "The green haired moron is Rorona Zoro, ex-bounty hunter and first mate, the blond haired idiot is the cook and the coward Usopp, our mechanic and sniper."

"Nice to meet you all." I bowed politely to them "I'm in your care now."

I was a Strawhat pirate. I giggled (almost hysterically) at my insane luck.

-0-

Upon arriving on the Going Merry, I showed the crew where the fruits and berry groves were, and after quickly restocking the ship, we were off. Looking at the island one last time, I bid it farewell and turned to the sea ahead of us.

Onto the adventure ahead of me!


	5. Chapter 5

After being shown the given the tour of merry, I gasped at how simple the entire ship was. The small ship had white paint over the hull, with charcoal black and light gray metal plating covering the open spaces on the bottom, whereas the top consisted of brown planks of wood surrounding the ship. On the ship, was a simple wooden structure raised upon a platform, with a door leading inside to the kitchen, and within the platform was a door leading to the storage room. I sighed and patted the mast.

"I'll save you this time," I whispered softly.

I had never paid attention to the SBS's that Oda gave out, and the last time I read the comics was about 4 years ago, just when Luffy had finished with fisherman island. I sighed internally. I only knew the major plot points and had forgotten how Luffy's adventures lead to one another or any minor details. I counted on my fingers, The east blue, Alabasta, Skypia, Enies lobby, Thriller bark, Time skip and finally Fishman island.

I was screwed.

I still hadn't decided whether to tell everyone how I came to be but somehow within the few hours of meeting, Luffy had already infected me with his laughter and charisma. It was kind of hard to get stressed with him around.

Once finished unpacking, I told the crew how I had eaten a Devil Fruit, and asked if anyone had the Encyclopedia of Devil fruits with them. Surprisingly, Nami had one and, unsurprisingly, charged a fee for borrowing it. Rolling my eyes at her antics, I promised her a share of my part of the treasure, if we found any.

Opening the large tome, I realized that this was going to take a long time. Turning to the 'red' section, I started reading. Turns out, there was the color section, then size section and finally type of fruit that it was based off. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of fruits just out there. It was a mystery why more people didn't have powers.

But I quickly found mine to no end of disbelief:

Name: Kyu-Kyu no Mi. (Absorb Absorb fruit)

Last know user: Unknown

Description: User can absorb anything and manipulate it.

Date of when was discovered: Unknown. Estimate: Void Century

REALLY?

THAT WAS IT? Those 4 lines were all the knowledge that the entire world held about my fruit? Hell, only the first line had any type of real information. As I was grumbling at my luck, that was when I remembered how I found the fruit and realized how lucky I was and that there was any information at all. Wiping away my sweat-drop, I slammed the book shut and out flew a familiar black note. I picked it up.

'You're welcome brat.'

Widening my eyes, I glanced around hoping none had noticed. Sanji was still cooking, Nami was pouring her attention on her maps, and Usopp was working on a contraption of sorts. Zoro was outside sleeping, and Luffy was on his special seat, upon the Merry's head. Sighing at how lucky I was, I pocketed the note alongside with the rest of the others. It would make it much more believable when I told everyone. IF I told anyone, I mentally corrected myself.

-0-

"HOLY CRAP! Now, I don't know if it's because I haven't eaten something home cooked in years, or that you're just that good!"

Sanji to his credit, created a cuisine in celebration to celebrate his new crew-mate. While continuously puffing his cigarette, he just nodded to my compliment with a grin. " I'd be a shit-cook if I couldn't handle a customer's palate, right? Anyways, if you think that's good wait till you get to the main course. It's my specialt-"

WHAP!

"Luffy." I stated with an emotionless smile " I am a man with a lot of patience. But if you dare even think about touching my plate tonight, I shall perform a dissection your stomach to take back what you take from my plate now."

As I tightened my grip, I gave him the largest grin that I could humanly make without breaking skin.

His creeping hand slowly retracted from the table.

(AN: Shoutout/Reference to This bites! My inspiration)

"I see we understand each other."

Continuing to eat as if nothing happened, the silence was deafening. Internally, I laughed since I made the world's largest glutton silent for once and that felt gre-

"Nice job girl."

I shrieked. I was so caught up thinking about how cool I looked, I didn't see Zoro slide up behind me.

As the atmosphere in the room deflated I turned to him and huffed "As I told you once, I am a boy. A Boy."

Realizing how I just shrieked I sighed. "This is going to be a thing, isn't it?"

And to my exasperation, everyone laughed. Even Nami. " It's the hair, isn't it?"

Everyone laughed harder. And that concluded my first meal with the Strawhats.

-0-

As everyone drifted off to sleep, I volunteered to take the night watch. Not that I could sleep anyway. Climbing up to the foremast, I could see everything. The salty breeze was light against my skin, as I played with a card between my fingers. I wondered about the possibilities of being able to absorb anything and thought how I could turn it into a weapon.

I could absorb force directed at me, or absorb the air around me to create a vacuum causing enemies to be knocked unconscious from oxygen deprivation. I wondered if I could absorb solid things, and throw them back out when and if I wanted to.

If I trained hard enough, I probably didn't even have to even touch anything to absorb things. There were no rules in devil fruits and could be abused anyway possible. No doubt about it, this fruit was powerful.

Staring at the King of hearts, I wondered ...

Holding my palm flat open, I decided to poke my finger onto my hand. It seemed solid enough. I kept poking my hand with my finger harder and harder until it started to hurt. Then I started placing all my concentration into my left hand and placed the card onto of it.

What happened next both surprised and disgusted me. For the next few seconds, I witnessed the morbid spectacle of the metallic rectangle get absorbed into the core of my left hand. My palm of my hand seemed to turn liquid-ish yet solid enough to be mistaken as a marsh. The skin of my hand tore itself to let the card in, but instead of feeling excruciating pain it was numb. I could see the muscle sinew and bone IN my hand and it disturbed me how the massive tear in my hand slowly closed itself up without a scar.

What. The. Fuck.

Now what? Staring at my hand, I tried poking my hand again which seemed to have become mere flesh and bone again. But somehow, I still felt the card within my hand, right underneath the surface of my skin.

Imagine getting a cast on your hand and having a desire to scratch your skin, but replace the cast with my skin, and the itch with my card.

Comparing my hands together, I didn't see any difference between the two which only confused me more. Deciding to try something out, I released my bo and hit it into the palm of my right hand.

Thwip-Wap.

Thwip-Wap.

Seemed normal. Then I turned my attention to my left hand.

Thwip-Clunk.

Clunk?

Trying again,

Thwip-Clunk.

Laughing at how I had turned my hand into metal, I tried taking the card out. Extending my hand out, I flexed the palm of my hand, expecting the card to fall out. It didn't. Instead of falling into my waiting palm, it flew out and hit the planks next to the tangerine trees.

Suddenly poker-faced as I wiped away at the cascade of cold sweat coming down my back. It wouldn't have done me favors if I had even touched Nami's tangerines. I did not want to be 'Death-ed' by Nami.

Peering over the edge, I looked down at the ground to find the card gone. Raising an eyebrow, I turned around and nearly fell off the foremast. The card was hovering in midair. Frowning as I pushed it experimentally, and gravity immediately resumed. I sighed as I still had to figure this out.

-0-

As the sun started to rise, the hatch opened and Usopp came out, looking drained. He climbed up to the foremast and poked his head in, "Hey Alex," Usopp yawned, "It's time for my shift, you can come down now-"He trailed off as he saw what I was doing.

Or to be more exact, what my cards were doing.

They were flying around me, acting as target practice. The cards ducked and weaved over my bo and gave me a few cuts if I swung too hard and missed or wasn't fast enough to block them.

I tried to hit them with my bo, causing me to continuously turn to try to keep them in my view as I "tussled" with them. That way, I could have kept training my mind and body, as well as keep a lookout.

During the night, I had tested my new abilities. It seemed that I could fit anything into me (Insert sex joke here) if it was smaller than me.

I had placed my entire deck of cards into myself and found out that whatever I absorbed, had some sort of connection with me. I had a free shield! I could freely control the cards now and could make them do my bidding. Of course, I could only control 3 cards now, but with practice, I was certain that I could have controlled them all.

As the poor sniper's mind tried to make sense of what was happening (Which must have looked terrifying, as I had cuts all over me and the cards looked like they had a mind of their own).

He started rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, he overlooked the small fact that he was on a ladder, and fell.

"OH, SHI- "

Sending the cards to position under him as he fell, I grabbed his hand and hauled him up.

For the longest time, we just… stood there, a heavy silence filling the air like molten steel. Finally, Usopp broke said silence and raised a finger, "Uh, what was that about?"

Shrugging sheepishly, I replied. "Uh, I decided to test the limits of my fruit and found out that I could control things mentally, as long it has been in my body and used my cards as target practice and to train while keeping a lookout because I was fed up?"

Staring blankly at me, "I got bored and had some fun with my powers."

Putting his finger down, Usopp looked at me with a deadpan look.

"I am going to take watch now."

"Ok."

"I am going to try to forget what had happened."

"Right-o."

"And I am going to ignore how I have nearly died as of just now and try to piece together the last remaining bits of sanity I have left."

"Fair enough."

"Good-day Alex."

"Same here Usopp."

And with that he turned away looking away at the distance.

Laughing to myself, I jumped off, placed the cards under me and created a mid-air walkway.

It wasn't until I laid onto my hammock that I realized how exhausted I was. I had been training all night. Closing my eyes with a smile, I let Morpheus cart me off to his realm.

-0-

"WAKE UP SHIT HEADS! BREAKFAST IS DONE! You too, Nami-Swan! Breakfast is served!"

Waking up to a hungry Luffy screaming "WOO! BREAKFAST!" was as good as any wakeup call, if you enjoyed getting sprayed with spit and knocked off your hammock.

"Owww…..."

After peeling myself off the floor, I slowly put on my shirt, and opened the door to the lounge, expecting breakfast, small chatter, and coffee.

I only found chaos and a battlefield.

Sanji was kicking Zoro from the table with nary a word while pouring tea to Nami, who sat on the far side of the table, calmly reading the newspaper.

Zoro, on the other hand, was blocking his attacks with his sheath and stealing toast from Sanji's plate, as well as keeping Luffy from stealing from his own. Usopp was placing tobasco sauce on Luffy's plate as he tried to eat some bacon. Emphasis on the 'tried'. Luffy himself was stealing food from everyone as he gorged himself.

Nodding a good morning to Nami, I sent my cards to put bread into the toaster (Via chopstick style) and waited for my coffee to finish brewing. Pouring myself some nice, hot coffee, I walked out, with my cards behind me carrying toast. I wasn't going to get into this. Not this early. Nope. Fuck that shit.

I came back half an hour later, still sipping on coffee. Leaning on the door sill I noticed that things had calmed down. Placing my coffee mug on a stray card (Man, I was getting lazy. But hey, practice makes perfect, right?) I asked Nami when we were going to hit the next island.

"Ah, thanks for reminding me Alex," She nodded appreciatively at me.

"MORONS, SHUT UP!" Now with everyone's attention on her, she continued. "The next island is our final pit stop in the east blue. The name of the island is called Logue town, also known worldwide as the town of beginnings and endings."

Noticing Luffy's blank stare I pressed on, "It's where your predecessor was born and executed, Captain." He kept staring at me. "I mean Gold D. Roger"

Now he had his full attention. Nami nodded, "That's the last island that we can resupply at before passing through the grand line. Shall we dock there?"

The feral grins that she received said enough.

"So, the pirate age all began from here, eh?"

I nodded at Sanji as I kept staring at awe. The city seemed like an old day Hong Kong, bustling with activity everywhere you looked. Stalls littered the streets as people strolled from place to place. The hundreds of different stores lured me to come closer, to buy their wares. The smells were incredible, some had tactfully placed spice and food items next to each other, resulting in bringing in even more hungry patrons.

"I'm going to go look for some equipment to buy." Supposed Usopp as he turned to leave.

"Seems like I can get some cheap ingredients and food here too" As Sanji mused. "As well as fine woman…."

Luffy beamed "I'm going to the execution stand!" and rushed off.

Zoro turned to Nami "I do have something I want to buy too but I have no mone-"

"I'll happily lend it to you," giggled Nami

"Thanks!"

She continued, "at 300 percent interest."

Rolling his eyes at Nami, he took a few bills and started walking in no direction.

"Uh, that's the way to the harbor Zoro," I pointed "those are the shops."

"I knew that," Zoro said indigenously and turned AWAY from my finger.

"I didn't know what to expect …. Anyways, Nami can I have some money too? I need to buy some new clothes and some things."

"Sure," As she passed me some bills. "-Don't forget, 300 percent interest" she cooed.

Grumbling, I strolled off.

The shops were amazing! They had all sorts of wares inside of them and as the owners tried to shout over the hustle and bustle of the crowd their assistants tried to entice random people within the crowd. The arches within the buildings reminded me of the streets of Italy, where the stone walls opened to reveal even more stores. The hustle and bustle of the crowd was reassuring, as I had been stuck alone on an island for several days. Families pushed strollers around the streets and of course, there was the occasional pick pocket. I wanted to stop them, but the scene of Luffy nearly being executed stuck within my head. I had a schedule.

Asking around, I quickly found the store I was looking for, the chemist. Walking in, I heard a 'DING!' telling the owners someone had arrived.

"Hi, how can I help you?" A portly woman asked, washing her hands off with a cloth.

"Uh, do you have some potassium nitrate or saccharides with you?"

"Some what?"

Mentally facepalming myself, I was reminded that in the One Piece universe, there was still no chemicals that were named, and they relied on doctor's drugs. I would be lucky if anyone but a doctor or scientist could say what was a periodic table.

"Oh, I meant do you have any uh, plant fertilizer or sugar with you?"

"Of course, we have them in 250 grams, 500 grams, and 1-kilogram packs, ranging from 150 Beri to 500! Which one would you like?"

-0-

DING!

"Thank you for your purchase!"

"-TOP, THEIF!"

Wait, what?

The crowd turned to the noise and as I turned to see what was all the commotion about, A man shouldered my left arm (Which contained the iron cards).

"WATCH IT, MORON!" The man snarled, and as he fell, he dropped a black sack which stared to spill out Beri's. He looked middle aged and was thinly built. He wore a black cap and had a mask that concealed the lower half of his face. Pulling out a knife, "I'm warning you dude, I have a knife-"

The thief realized his actions and decided to politely re-introduce himself by placing his face into my ironclad fist. I was only happy to indulge him. His knife fell with a clatter as he held his face.

"WAT D'A HEWL WAS TA'T FORE DUDE! YOU BOKE MY NOSE!"

"My fist wanted to meet your face-" I replied pleasantly, releasing my bo, "-and I'M ABOUT TO GIVE 'EM A SHOTGUN WEDDING!" and without further ado, sent my cards tripping him, sending him tumbling onto the cold stone floor. As the man started to rise, I smacked him across the face with my bo, and he tumbled backward.

As he laid on his back groaning, I stepped up to him.

"Sadly, my fist decided to cheat on you with a large metal stick." I cackled at him as he groaned on the floor.

Another man quickly arrived at the scene, huffing and puffing. Placing his hands on his knees he huffed out "Thank- 'puff' - you kind- 'wheeze' -sir" As he wiped his arm across his forehead he saw the man's groaning body. Kicking it a few times "That's what you get 'wheeze' for stealing."

Turning his attention back to me and raising his hand in a handshake, "I'm John. The owner of the store clothes store 'Funk'. This thief-" Kicking him once more, "- stole nearly 400,000 beri from me. I can offer you anything on the house as a thank you. What do you say, partner?"

"I'd very much like that sir," I replied with a smile. Closing my bo, I followed him as my cards trailed behind me.

"Well, here it is Miss." Rolling my eyes, I pushed open the salon doors and admired the bright and simple interior.

Looking around, I picked a few shirts and pants. Noticing a woman with orange hair walk past me with a HUGE stack of clothes, I moved in closer to the rack, allowing her to pass through.

"Thanks," said the muffled voice.

"Welcome," I replied as I kept looking through hoodies- Orange hair?

Grabbing a black hoodie, I turned back to Nami.

Sliding behind her, I told John with a smirk "I would like these," shoving my purchases to him- "and my very good friend's clothes here."

"I can pay for it myself creep-" muttered Nami "-I'm not interested in dati- Oh hey Alex."

Realizing what I just said Nami turned to me with money signs in her eyes. (My god that was disturbing) "Really? But I only gave you 2000 Beri's how on earth could you possibly pay for this?"

Smirking at her "I caught a thief holding around 400,000 Beri's and the owner," He started to pale, as I turned to him. "-told me I could have anything for free. Isn't that right John?"

"Ye-Yes" He signed dejectedly.

Nami squealed.

"And take a chunk off my debt will ya?"

-0-

"Hmm," Nami mused.

"Problem?" We were walking down a quiet street, heading towards the town square.

"The air pressure seems to be dropping at an abnormal rate. It may be best to quickly return to the ship."

I shrugged "You're the navigator, Not m- Oh hey guys."

Everyone somehow had encountered up with each other, where a trio of lanes collided. Except for a certain rubber moron.

A disembodied voice said, "Where's Luffy?"

I pointed towards the execution stand, where a large crowd started to appear.

"WHY THE HELL IS HE ON THE GODDAMN EXECUTION STAND!?" a quartet of angry voices cried out.

"Here we go again." I thought as everyone started to panic.

So uh. This is my first authors note. I really don't know what to actually say in these things so until I get news, I'll just answer questions that you guys may have.

...

No questions ? kk. Please rate and review. Most authors tell you to do so without reason, so here's mine (THEY ARE LIKE DRUGS. REVIEWS ARE LIKE FOOKIN DRUGS. DRUUUUGGGGS) ((Don't do drugs kids.))

And that ends my first authors note. I am severely disappointed. I was promised cookies.


	6. Chapter 6

"FOR THE CRIME OF ANGERING ME, I SENTENCE YOU, MONKEY D. LUFFY, TO A FLASHY EXECUTION!" The clown bellowed out. "LET'S CAUSE A FLASHY RUCKUS, BOYS! JUST STAND THERE AND WATCH! YOUR FLASHY EXECUTION SHALL NOW BE CARRIED OUT FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE!"

"Did anyone hear a quiet 'Nooooo'?" I questioned as I followed Zoro and Sanji as they made a beeline into the crowd.

"Shut up and focus on the plan, moron." Was the only answer I got.

"Yeah, yeah, run into the crowd and wait for your signal. I mean, what do I actually do-"

"I AM THE MAN WHO'LL BECOME THE PIRATE KING!"

As if on cue, the crowd started to murmur within itself.

"Did he really just say that?"

"Now? In front of everyone?"

"Does he know where he is?"

I grinned wildly as I skidded to a halt as I neared the platform. This was the moment where the whole WORLD realized what would happen. Even though I had met him just a few mere days ago, I believed that with all my being.

Another woman at the bottom of the stand flung out her hand and started to shout.

"TAKE CARE OF THEM BOYS!"

And then I saw the ragtag clown group trying to kill us.

"Aw nuts… Here they COME!" Punching a man in the face, he crumbled and I had to duck as another took his place, swinging his sword where my neck was. As I sent my cards to block his sword, I kicked him in the chest, back into the group where more fell. Rolling under yet another sword, I found myself kneeling under a man with literal bear claws.

"PREPARE TO DIE FLAHI- "I headbutted him in the groin. Ow.

"Heheheh-" Sidestepping a sword, I brought down my bo, and the resulting cries of pain were reassuring. Placing my shoulder under the man, I hurled him towards Sanji's group. Where he was promptly tenderized into non-being. I almost felt sorry for the guy. Then turning to another man with a large nose, I blocked his raised leg, aimed to kick me in the side, with another armored arm and dragged him in, pulling his leg towards me. Swinging my bo back down, the resulting snap was painful for all who heard.

Kicking him back into the mob, Sanji suddenly shouted out, "ALEX, THROW YOUR STUPID CARDS AT THE BIG NOSE!"

"WHHHAAATTTT?!" And enraged voiced cried out.

"I CAN'T! I MIGHT HI- AW HELL!" I sent my cards back into my right arm, and not a moment too late, as a large man with a club swung down his weaponry upon my arm. The club recoiled and flew back, right into his ugly face. God, somehow that still hurt! I flexed my hand in front of him, and the flat of my cards sent him reeling. "THE WIND IS TOO STRONG! AND IF I MISS, I MIGHT EVEN KILL LUFFY!"

"GYAAHAHHAAHAHAH! JUST WATCH CAREFULLY FROM THERE! WITNESS THE LAST MOMENTS OF YOUR CAPTAIN!"

"ZORO!"

I jumped as he bellowed.

"NAMI!"

"USOPP!"

"SANJI!"

"ALEX!"

"Sorry, but it looks like I'm dead." He smiled. In the face of death, he smiled.

"DON'T SAY THAT YOU IDIOT!"

BOOOM!

Then the light fell upon us, and it was glorious.

Ever been near a lightning strike? No? Let me explain, the hairs on your arms rise, and you feel like the wind has been knocked out of you. My heart was pounding beneath my rib cage, and my vision blurred. And when I could see again, the rain had started to fall upon a hunched figure within the ruins of what used to be the last resting place of Gold .D Roger. For a brief heart-stopping moment, I was scared that in a morbid chance of fate, this was a universe where Luffy had died. That the world would never see what he could achieve.

That was before I heard the already too-familiar laugh.

"Shishishishisshishishishishi!"

I saw Luffy pick up his hat within the remains of the stand. And as he brushed off the dust, he looked towards the darkened sky, where it was properly raining now, and laughed.

"Looks like I did survive! How lucky!"

The crowd fell silent as they watched the entire scene unfold.

Zoro stared at him.

Sanji stared at him.

The clowns stared at him.

I started to stare, stopped then turned to my crewmates. "Is God real?"

Suddenly, a metallic voice rang throughout the square speakers. "SURROUND THE TOWN SQUARE NOW, AND CORNER ALL THE PIRATES!"

That snapped them out of it. Zoro cried out, "RUN, NOW!"

"AND STOP MAKING GODDAMN FACES AT THE MARINES YOU IDIOT!" I continued as Luffy began pulling his eyelid towards them.

The storm was really coming down now. The blue sky was completely gone now, and you could only see the thick black clouds that turned the sky from a calm day, into a storm that only brought chaos and destruction. The clouds formed raindrops, which seemed to drag us down to drown. As the wind and rain buffeted our faces, we kept running through the stone maze, hoping to see an end to it.

The rain mixed with my sweat, and I could feel my strength waning with the wind. I could easily hold my position in a fight but had no stamina for running at all. I didn't know if it was my devil fruit which caused so, but I could tell that this wind was not made by the natural elements. We kept running and soon, we saw the harbor approach in the distance, and we hightailed it.

That was until we saw a woman with a sword in a floral shirt, holding her sword out in a well-practiced stance, ready to fight.

"Roronoa Zoro…." She ground out behind her gritted teeth, "To think that you were a pirate at that too! You were just toying with me all along!"

"YOU BASTARD! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THAT LADY?!" Sanji raged.

"Never thought you were a marine …" Zoro muttered.

"I shall take back that Wadou Ichimonji!" She cried out, already running towards us.

Turning to us, "Go on without me-" turning back to Tashagi he started to sneer. "-Just try it."

And with that, the swordsman and swordswoman rushed at each other, clashed blades and began to fight.

Hoooo boy. I could see why people liked to ship them.

Thick icy sheets of rain obscured our vision. We kept running with the water running freely down our faces and into our already soaked clothes. The flash river that ran down the street gushed over the top of the pavement and mixed into the stones that lined the road. Turning another corner in the stone maze, I stopped in my tracks yet again as I saw a massive man block the path, his motorcycle alongside with him.

"The names Smoker." He stated. "I'm a captain of the marine headquarters."

He held out his arms, "-AND I WON'T ALLOW YOU TO SET SAIL FROM HERE!"

His hands rushed out at us, as his arms started to dissipate and turn into smoke. It was quite a sight, the white uniform blending into smoke as his arms grabbed Luffy. I took out my cards and sent them flying into Smokers face. They went through him.

"Aw come on, No fair!" I nearly whined.

Giving me a glare that belonged to a sea king, he turned to me and Sanji. "I don't have time for runts like you." Turning his other arm onto us we were sent flying into an arch. "WHITE BLOW!"

"AUGH!" / "HEY!"

"HEY! TAKE THIS! GUM-GUM PISTOL!"

Smoker decided to dodge the blow and appeared behind Luffy. Slamming his head into the stone floor, I winced as I saw spit, blood and parts of the pavement fly into the air. I needed to stall for time until Dragon arrived.

"Hey Smoky!" Distracted, he turned his glare to me "What?"

I flinched at the sight of his glare. It made me cower beneath it, and the fact my stupid plan was going to hurt, brought me no sense of relief. But I had a job to do. Putting on my most shit-eating grin, "Ah, well. That's my captain you're holding there and I would like to formally request you to release him. If you don't," I send my card to block my eye and glared at him with the other, aiming to look like a certain space bending Skelton. "Someone's going to get hurt."

He redoubled his glare at me. Oh god. I didn't know if Smoker had Haki, but he could sure as well fucking fake it, that's for sure!

"And who exactly will get hurt?" he replied like he fully knew who it was going to be.

Hint: it was me.

I smiled in response while shitting my pants. "Oh me, but this is a distraction. Don't look around." Turning to look behind him and seeing nothing, I proceeded to punch him in his face. It hit. And he looked at me unimpressed.

"You?" He questioned accusingly, "-You can use Haki?" Staring at my smoking hand, I realized that I could hit him, I unleash my bo, and took a wild swing. Which somehow passed through him. What?!

My eyes widened as I looked at my bo in disbelief. "Oh come the fuck on-"

And was promptly slammed against a pillar again.

"Not well practiced eh? Looks like your luck's come to an end girl."

"Perhaps not."

Hooooollllllyyyy shit. Even that I knew what was going to happen, the appearance of a Dragon still scared the living crap out of me.

"Waaaut, wh's dere?" Luffy mumbled around the stone that he was currently eating.

"You…..." Sweat mixing in the rain, he turned to the hooded Monkey D. Dragon. "The entire government is after your head you know." Dragon smiled.

Suddenly, I saw Luffy, holding his brother's corpse, crying to the heavens. The final brother he had known for his entire life had died in front of him. I couldn't let that happen to him as well. This was my only chance.

I cried to Dragon as loudly as I could, "SEND THE TOP HAT TO THE SNOW KINGDOM TO FIND HIS BROTHERS AND HIS MEMORIES!"

He looked at me incredulously. But after a heart stopping moment, he nodded, then vanished. I couldn't describe it any other way. He literally vanished into thin air.

Then the world erupted into light and air. For a second, as everything descended into chaos and the wind around me, I felt at home. And for just a split moment, I saw her. I felt at peace. Then just as fast as it came, the feeling left and the rain fell, reminding me what situation I was in. I was kneeling on the floor, and somehow, my hand found it's way to my pendant.

"IT'S A GUST!" Hearing the marines, I turned and somehow, saw smoker on the other side of the street.

"MOVE IT NOW!" Zoro cried as the marines started to regain their wits about them.

I broke out of my stupor and started running after him. After taking yet another turn, I finally saw the harbor. Never had the going merry seem so welcoming. Even with the screaming unholy witch upon it.

"HURRY UP AND GET ON YOU MORONS! WE'RE SETTING SAIL IMMEDIATELY! RAISE THE MIZZENMAST, JIB THE TOPSAILS! WE HAVE THE TAILWIND! WE NEED TO GET OUT BEFORE THE MARINES CATCH UP!"

After an hour of grueling work, running around to tighten various knots and ropes, the wind seemed to carry us, towards our destination. The wind arose to push the once-still waters into choppy, which morphed into mountains of angry waves. We struggled to get the sails down and to tie them off. The salty breeze hit us in the face as we worked. The waves grew so large that the Merry was dwarfed at the sheer size of the waves. Upon the ship, there was no staying still unless the person was anchored in place, as the wet planks made the entire deck turn into a slip and slide.

But when I finally looked up, and into the horizon, I saw a light. I shouted over the storm, "NAMI! THERE'S A LIGHT HOUSE AHEAD!"

I shouted over the storm, "NAMI! THERE'S A LIGHT HOUSE AHEAD!"

Nami grinned back. "That's the lighthouse of guidance, Alex." She turned to the rest of the crew. "The entrance of the Grand Line is just ahead of the light."

THUNK!

We jumped as the barrel hit the deck. Sanji looked us with confusion." What? This is a momentous occasion. We should celebrate!"

Placing his leg upon the barrel, he cried out "I'M GOING TO THE GRAND LINE TO FIND THE ALL BLUE!"

We looked at each other and shrugged. Why the hell not?

"I'M GOING TO BE THE KING OF PIRATES!"

"I'M GOING TO BE THE WORLD'S BEST SWORDSMAN!"

"I'M GOING TO DRAW A MAP OF THE WORLD!"

"I'M G-GO-GOING TO BECOME A BRAVE WARRIOR OF THE SEAS!"

Now, this was an imperative choice. This would forever be the choice I made in this world that would really place me upon this crew. I could still leave. Did I truly want this?

... Hell yes.

Thunk!

"I'M GOING TO EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING THAT THIS WORLD HAS TO OFFER, AND NEVER STAND IDLE AGAIN!"

"OFF TO THE GRAND LINE, WE GO !"

I think I may have teared up a little, as we continued our trip. That scene was one of the most important scenes as a crew, finalizing their hopes and wishes when they joined Luffy. I was happy to be apart of that. Even with the storm raging around us, it was peaceful. Until Nami said that the entrance was a literal mountain.

Now, that concept was met with a lot of disbelief.

"A waterway? But that's crazy!" Usopp objected. "Even if that waterway is there, there's no way that it could carry a ship up a mountain!"

"But that's what the map says." She countered.

"That's right! It's not like Nami-Swan could be wrong!"

Zoro puzzled asked, "In the first place, why do we even have to enter through the entranceway anyways?" Pointing to the calm belt, he continued "It looks like we could head south and still enter."

"NO, WE CAN'T!" Nami and Luffy both said simultaneously.

"And why not?"

"Surprisingly, I can answer that. The calm belts have no air currents, making us have to row to the Grand line, which would take weeks, if not months. We would die from lack of supplies, and this" slapping Luffy's head, "Glutton."

"YEAH! What Alex said, and we HAVE to use the real way since it's much cooler!"

As the others bickered, I noticed something about the wind. Or the lack of it anyway.

Holding my bo as if it was a microphone, "Ladies and gentlemen if you would kindly look to your left, you will find this amazing calm belt."

Everyone rushed out.

"Now, the going merry tourist company welcomes you to our most favorite past time-"

Bubbles suddenly appeared on the surface of the water.

"-PISSING OFF RESIDENTS!"

And the sea erupted with sea kings.

FWOMMMMP!

"WOAAHHHHHH!"

We flew and looking over the edge, I saw that we were up on the nose of a particularly large one.

"Oh." Whimpered Nami as she saw what allowed us to fly.

"Noone FUCKING move a single GOODAMN muscle." Hissed Sanji as he started eating the filter of his cigarette.

Stepping over Usopp who was currently spewing foam, I threw the oars to everyone.

"A-Alright, as soon as th-this thing goes under, We ROW LIKE HELL. Understood?" Zoro stammered out.

Merry lurched.

"W-What?"

A-A-ACHOO!

Normally, when witnessing a sneeze that powerful, I would stand and applaud. Instead, I held the railing as we did a loop de loop.

…

I cannot believe I just wrote that.

I love this crew.

Everyone started to scream. And flail. And rowed, like the devil himself was chasing us. Couldn't blame them though.

Panting on the deck, we took some time to regain some measure of energy into our aching muscles.

"Aw sweet jesus, I think I got wood burn from the oars." I panted as I tried to calm my raging nerves.

"My everything is burning …..." cried Nami.

Suddenly Luffy shouted, "I SEE THE MYSTERY MOUNTAIN!"

I turned towards the horizon and WOW.

Large, sizable, substantial, great, huge, immense, enormous, extensive, colossal, massive, mammoth, vast, tremendous, gigantic, giant, monumental, mighty, gargantuan, elephantine, titanic and mountainous. That were all the synonyms to big that I knew. It still wasn't enough to describe what I saw. The red line wasn't just a big rock. It was the horizon. God couldn't have made this. No one could have. It was just…. There. Kudos to Goda-sensei for trying, but using mere pen and paper was certainly not enough to bring light to show the grand demenur of this rock.

"We're off slightly, we need to be more to the right! "

"HARD TO STARBOARD!" Nami screamed.

For a moment, I heard Zoro and Usopp struggling to keep the Merry's rudder under control until I heard something break.

Everyone turned and stared at the whipstaff's pieces for a moment before a shudder beneath our feet brought us all back to our senses.

"THE WHIPSTAFF!" Nami shrieked in terror. I froze as I noticed that we were heading straight for one of the arches. "Luuufyyy!?" I asked nervously.

"I'm on it!"

"GUM-GUM-" Luffy jumped over the edge, planting himself between the arch and our ship before inflating. "-BALLOON!"

The Merry stayed in place... until we finally slipped past, flying up the canal so fast we might have nearly flown.

There was just one problem. A single rubber brat.

"LUFFY!" I screamed.

"GRAB ON!" Zoro desperately, holding an arm out to him.

Luffy's hand grabbed Zoro's in an instant, clutching it for dear life. One hard tug later and our idiot captain was tumbling onto the deck.

I sighed in relief as I hugged Luffy.

"NEVER DO THAT AGAIN, DUMBASS!" I shouted through my smile.

As we reached the peak of the mountain, I ran to the back of the ship and imagined that I could see a glimpse of the finish line. And my way home.

"Raftel …..." I whispered.

-0-

"BWOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"

Dragging all thoughts of home away, the sound of Laboon brought me to my senses.

"What is that?" Nami mused, looking back at the map.

"Nami-Swan, there's a mountain ahead of us!" Cried Sanji, as he sat upon the sails.

"A mountain?" Nami perplexed. "But that's impossible! Once we pass the twin capes, we should head for open sea."

I twisted her head, facing forward. "Explain that then." I pointed towards the mass of black that suddenly was upon us.

"BWOAAHHHH!"

The next few minutes were pandemonium.

"THAT'S NOT A MOUNTAIN!" Usopp gasped. "IT'S A WHALE !"

"THERE'S AN OPEN SPACE UP AHEAD! TURN PORTSIDE!"

"HEY! I have an idea!"

"THE GODDAMN RUDDERS BROKEN!"

"TURN LEEEFFFFT!"

"THE DAMN RUDDER WON'T BUDGE!"

"WHERE ARE YOU LUFFY?!"

"DON'T DO IT LUFFY!" DON'T YOU DARE DO THA-"

BOOOM!

Suddenly, the merry rocked, as smoke flew from the tip of the ship.

A quartet of voices started to scream. "YOU IDIOT!"

I hollered "BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

CRACK!

Merry's head flew clean off, missing Nami by a few inches.

"Am I dead yet …." She half whimpered/cried.

"Not yet," I replied

"AHHHHHH! MY SPECIAL SEAT!" Luffy cried out as his eyes widened as he caught the Merry's head.

"Ignore my last statement."

"SHUT UP AND START ROWING!"

"NOW OUR CHANCE! RUN FOR IT!"

"LET'S GET OUT OF HER-"

"How dare… you destroy-" I watched in horror as Luffy started winding up.

"Luffy," I tried to reason with him. "I know you are angry, but please don't do anything stup-"

"MY SPECIAL SEAT !" Luffy cried out as he punched Laboon in the eye. Right in the center. Oh dear.

"YOU IDIOT !"

The fact that Laboon's eye suddenly looked down on us brought no sense of relief among the crew.

"IT SAW US!"  
"Come at me you Bastard!"

"SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY !" Cried Zoro as he and Usopp drop kicked him.

BWOOOOOAHHHHH !

Oh god, that smell. The smell of a thousand dead fish, and rotting teeth. Laboon suddenly twisted his whole body mass while opening his gargantuan mouth. That began to suck in gallons and gallons of water in. Including us. Aw shit.

"HOLD ON TO YOUR EVERYTHING !"

"Have we died?"

"I'm not burning in the damnation pit for all eternity, so no."

"And I don't have wings or a ring of light above me."

"HAH! What makes you think you'll go up there?"

"Then is it just me, or is there a light at the end of the tunnel?" questioned Usopp as he turned to face it.

"Well," Sanji counted off his fingers. "We have either died and are now in a state of limbo. Or we have all gone batshit insane. Toss a coin."

"And aren't we NOT supposed to run into the light?" I asked as I smiled knowingly.

Suddenly, as the light approached us, and we fell into another cavern.

SPLOOSH!

"…"

Everyone was silent as their minds attempted to catch up to what their eyes were seeing. To re-illiterate, instead of seeing a pink exterior with acid foaming around us, we saw the blue sky dotted with clouds and an island within the middle of the sea, sitting there pleasantly as if it was waiting for us.

"What am I supposed to say to something like this?" I waved my hand towards the interior of the cave, or stomach. I honestly could not have said where the hell we were.

"Are we dreaming?"

"Yeah, this has GOT to be a dream."

"Are you seeing the open blue sky after we got swallowed by a whale and an island with a palm tree and house on it? Again, INSIDE a whale." Usopp said whilst looking around.

"Well, at any rate... maybe we are in the stomach of the whale? The walls could be painted or something?"

SPLASH! "ROAAAAAAAAAAARRRR!"

"AAAAAGH! SEA KING!"

"A GIANT SQUID!"

"THUNK!"

"THUNK!"

"THUNK!"

Zoro placed Wadou Ichimonji back in its sheath. "Someone's coming out of the house. Be on guard."

Aw shit.

…...

I've been saying that a lot now.

A few things I have to say here, so this author notice isn't shit.

PLEASE DONT IGNORE THIS BIT! AND DON'T TURN TO THE NEXT CHAPTER!

Firsts things first, I want to thank my friend ' lavonlemonder ' for proof checking these last few chapters and who will continue to do so. The text would look a lot more shitty without her, so there's that. (Thanks, buddy:3) ((That's still a butt.)) (((Personal joke.)))

And now she's screaming at me for "not doing my own damn work"

Heh.

My next point is that I feel like a complete ass to you all since I update semi-regularly only with 2500 to 3000 words each time. That's like giving a child only parts of a cookie, rather than a full half. So that I don't feel bad, I plan to make all my chapters after this one to be around 7000 to 8000 just for you guys. That's the equivalent of a full cookie. You are welcome.

Anyways, next up is a question that a fan called "431101134" asked, "How old is Alex?" He is 19.

This is the rest of the crew,

Luffy: 17

Zoro: 19

Nami: 18

Usopp: 17

Sanji: 19

Chopper: 15

Robin: 28

Franky: 34

Brook: 88.

(Jesus, except for Robin, Franky and Brook they are really young!)

This leads me to something that you fans may want. I may make a few omakes here and there like Halloween or Christmas because, DUH ITS FUCKIN CHRISTMAS AND HALLOWEEN OF COURSE I'M MAKING SHIT FOR THAT. But including that, I may make a omake about his birthday if you guys want it. Or if you guys want a specific thing. But you guys have to tell me, I can't read minds over 2000 miles away. But I have been thinking about writing this story for a VERY long time so I have a lot of unused plot bunnies here and there, and that leads me to my next point:

Finally, I would like to give a shoutout to

This Bites!

An inspiration to get off my skinny ass and write this down.

Once again, rate and review, please. (They remind me that the numbers I see on my screen are not made up and are from real life people.)


	7. Chapter 7

The old man walked out without nary a word and started to reel in the giant squid. He had a pink floral shirt on, with 2 stripes of green and yellow, adorned with green circles and simple blue-white trousers. His hair looked like the end of a turkey. Enough said.

Pulling the squid into his shed, he kept staring at us with dull eyes the whole time.

"That old man took out that giant squid with one blow" whispered Usopp as he wiped his brow.

"But was he just fishing? Or was he trying to help us?" I whispered back.

"I think I recognize him." Deadpanned Zoro.

"Can't you see we're whispering!" Usopp and I cried out.

Rolling his eyes, he shouted to the old man. "OI! Are you Crocus from the Roger pirates!"

"WHAT!"

Now I remembered. Crocus was from Rogers pirates, and acted as the ship's doctor! How the hell could Zoro remember and I forget?

"You should introduce yourself first young man." He shouted back, as he pulled out a newspaper (How DID he get that?) and sat on a lawn chair.

Zoro sweat dropped, "Yeah sorry, Uh I'm Zoro of the Straw-hat pirates, and who are you?"

He looked at us blankly.

And we waited.

And waited.

And wow, this was a lot of waiting.

And waited.

"WILL YOU SPEAK ALREADY !" Roared Sanji as Nami tried to hold him back. (Wow, tick marks do pop up when you are that pissed.)

He looked at us uninterested.

"OI! IF IT'S An F-FI-FIGHT YOU WANT, IM W-WA-WARNING YOU! WE HAVE A CANNON!" Shouted Usopp.

He redoubled his glare upon us. "Don't. Or Someone may get hurt."

We waited

And waited

And waited

And for some strange reason in this universe I mused as we kept staring, everyone has the need to focus all their energy into a single eye when stating important things.

"And who would that be?" Zoro said cockily, if not for the sweat that was forming on his brow.

We waited

And waited

And waited

And waited for the joke

And waited some more

An-

"Me." He stated flatly

"NOONE CARES IF I CUT HIM, RIGHT ?!" Roared Zoro turning to us as he pulled a sword from his sheath, ready to jump off the railing.

(A/N: shit, was it jokes of 3 or 4? Crap, I can't remember. Anyways-)

"To answer your first question, My name is Crocus, I used to be on Rogers ship, I'm 71 years old a Gemini and type AB blood." He offered.

"I'M GOING TO ROAST HIM ALIVE!"

"Anyways, if you're wondering where you are, how did you miss the entrance? You first trespass upon MY private resort and start mouthing off with that attitude? Does this look like the stomach of a mouse?"

"S-so we really have been swallowed by a whale." Usopp stuttered out.

"What do we do ?!" wailed Nami, as she hugged herself. "I don't want to be digested !"

"The exits right there if you want it." Stated Crocus as he pointed to the horizon, where a large set of metal door hung upon.

"YOU CAN GET OUT OF HERE? / But why is there an exit in a whale's stomach?" Shouted everyone but me.

Nami perplexed, "Wait a moment. How is there a door floating in the sky?"

Usopp exclaimed "No wait! if you look carefully the skies, and the clouds are completely still !" Waving his hands and turning about, " They are just a painting! The insides of the whale's stomach have been painted over!"

"Oh, that's just my way of having a good time," Crocus said as a matter of factly as he kept reading the newspaper. (Seriously, how did a New coo get in here ?)

"Anyways, why is a surviving member of the world's most famous crew like you doing in a whale's stomach ? Especially an island whale ?" I burst out. "Aren't island whales supposed to be from the west blue ?"

He blinked in surprise. "How do you know that Laboon is an island whale?"

Aw shit. I unwilling told him I knew about his origins with the Rumbar pirates. My mind started screaming at me. BRAIN! MAKE UP An EXCUSE NOW! "I, uh, read it in a book dictating about the different types of whales in this world? And plus, you don't normally see a whale this big." Mentally praying for this to work, Crocus looked suspicious for a moment but decided to drop the subject. "Anyways, the exits right the-"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The waters started to rumble.

"WHAT'S THAT ?"

Muttering to himself as he rose, Crocus started walking to the edge of the island. "Crap, he's at it again..."

"Hey look! His islands are made out of iron !" Pointing to the bottom of the "ship" Nami was right. It seemed as if it was made out of iron, but that didn't make sense at all! Iron being placed in stomach acid, which had a P.h level of 1 or 2 would have chipped away at the base. But it looked as if the iron was being cleaned rather than dissolved. How was that even possi- Oh. He had Haki. I would have to ask him about that later.

"This whale," he said gravely, "has started to bash his head against the Red line again!"

WHAT !

"Yeah, now that you mentioned it," bleated Nami, "his forehead was covered in scars and was bellowing up into the sky !"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"Ah HA!" Usopp cried out as he pointed to him. "that's why you're here! You wanted to kill the whale from the inside!"

I whacked him. "Why would he kill Laboon, especially when he built that exit? He even said this was his private resort!"

"It doesn't matter. We have to get out now, or the Merry's going to get dissolved by the waves." Sanji continued.

"That's right, we don't have any obligations to Crocus. Let's get out of here." Zoro contiuned.

BOOM ! BOOM! BOOM!

WOAH!

"GET OUT OF HERE NOW !"

The next few minutes, we fought against the waves of an island whale, while trying to get dissolved by stomach acid. (I cannot believe I wrote that as well)

"HEY LOOK!" Nami cried out "The old man just jumped into the acid!"

"HE'S SWIMMING TO THE EXIT!"

BOOM ! BOOM! BOOM!

"WE'VE GOT NO CHOICE BUT TO ROW !"

"GET OUT THE OARS!"

"Hey, does someone hear screaming ?"

"WE'RE THE ONES SCREAMING! NOW ROW YOU IDIO-"

BAM!

A piece of the metal doors flew off, and out came 3 silhouettes flying through the air.

"WOAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"OH NO, MISS WEDNESDAY! BELOW US IS A SEA OF STOMACH ACID!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Oh hey, guys!" shouted Luffy as he hurtled through the air. "Can you help me out?"

We sweatdropped.

SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH!

"We just saw our rubber captain pop up behind a metal door with 2 others, who were carrying bazookas, and fell into the stomach acid of a whale." I turned to the rest of my crew. "Welcome to the Grand line, where common sense is dead and long gone. You can see why I left, right?"

"SHUT UP AND HELP US FISH THEM OUT!"

After fishing out the 3 people, I took note of Vivi, dubbed Miss Wednesday and her companion, Mr. 9. Wearing her Hypno suit, she looked less like a princess and more of a lowlife. I could see how people wouldn't have noticed her before. Alongside her was Mr.9 clad in his usual outfit and wearing a fake crown.

"Huh, the whale seems to have calmed down," Nami noted as she stared at the clouds.

"Mr.9" Vivi whispered, "These people seem like pirates. What should we do?"

"Y-yes I can clearly see that, but they seem to be understanding people though, they could be nice!" Mr.9 countered.

"You are aware we can hear you whispering right ?" I clipped in.

"GUAH!" / "GAAHH!"

"BOUNTY HUNTERS! I WON'T LET YOU EVEN LAY A SINGLE FINGER ON LABOON AS LONG AS I LIVE! AS LONG AS AIR GOES THROUGH MY LUNGS, AND MY HEART STILL BEATS BLOOD, NOONE WILL EVER HARM LABOON AGAIN!" Crocus howled out.

"Hey, who's that old man ?" Luffy questioned us.

I made to open my mouth, "Oh, his name's Croc-"

"Fufufufufufufufufufufu..."

"But, we're inside the whale now..."

Cocking their bazookas in sync,

"IT WILL BE ONLY TOO EASY, TO BLAST A HOLE IN HIS STOMACH!"

BAM! BAM!

"Damn rogues..." And with that, he jumped into the projectiles.

BOOOM !

I winced as he was consumed by the fire. "I hope your Haki still works old man," I whispered.

Turning their weapons to us, their fingers on the triggers, "OHOHOHOHOHOH! CEASE YOUR RESISTANCE!"

"JUST TRY TO PROTECT THE WHALE IF YOU CAN !" BUT IT WON'T STOP US FROM FEEDING OUR TOWN, USING THIS WHALE AS FOOD!"

"BUT IT WON'T STOP US FROM FEEDING OUR TOWN, USING THIS WHALE AS FOOD!"

WACK! WACK!

"I'm not sure what's going on right now, but I'll knock these guys out for sure!" Luffy seethed as he laid out Vivi and Mr.9

Then turning to us like nothing had happened, "Oh hey, Sanji! I'm hungry. Got any meat left?"

Welp. That escalated quickly.

"So you are Laboons last friend ?"

"Yep." Taking another sip of the sake that we had offered him he stared wistfully into the distance. "On the day of their departure, their captain asked me, "Can you please take care of Laboon for 2 to 3 years? Once we've sailed around the world, we'll come back no matter what." I had become good friends with Laboon and Captain Yorki so I accepted."

"Then what happened ?" Nami asked as she listened to the heart-rending tale being told.

"We waited..." Crocus sighed sadly "- for 50 years."

"For over 50 years, we've been waiting. He's been waiting. He still believes that everyone would come back."

Looking up from the paper that I was writing, I looked towards Laboon, who was still wailing up upon the mountain. I whispered softly, "I'm sorry buddy. Just wait a few more years. Brook will be back with us, I promise. I'll send you his regards." I suddenly remembered how Luffy gained his attention, to start a fight.

"Hey, Nami! Stop Luffy from breaking the mast please!"

"WHAAATTT !?"

SNAPP!

"YOU IDIOT!"

"Nevermind..."

"STOP CLIMBING LABOON YOU IDIOT! COME BACK HERE AND TAKE YOUR BEATING LIKE A MAN !"

"GOMU GOMU FLOWER ARRANGING !"

THUNK !

...

...

"He stabbed Laboon with our mast." I solemnly whispered.

"Was that our main mast ?" Usopp wondered.

"Yeah, I think it is," Zoro answered as if Usopp had asked about the weather instead.

BUUUUOOOOOOAAAAHHHHH !

"YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER MORON!"

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING ?!"

"STOP FIGHTING LABOON YOU DUMBASS!"

CRACK!

Throwing Luffy off his head, he turned to at him, embedded in the rocks.

"HEY WHALE!" Shouted Luffy as he pulled himself free, "OUR FIGHT HAS YET TO BE SETTLED, SO WE MUST FIGHT AGAIN !" YOUR OLD FRIENDS MAY BE DEAD, BUT I'M YOUR NEW RIVAL! ONCE MY CREW SAILS AROUND THE GRAND LINE, WE'LL BE SURE TO COME BACK HERE TO SEE YOU AGAIN !"

Tears started to well up in Laboon's eye, and he started to cry to the heavens once more.

BWOOOOOAAAHHHH!

But this time, it was one with a purpose.

One horrendous painting later,

Buah ?

"Annnd DONE! This will be a sign of our promise to fight again! So don't bash your head against the wall and make it disappear alright ?"

Buah! Buah!

"Shishsihsishishishsihsishishsihsi!"

I stood up from where I was sitting to watch the spectacle unfold before me. Luffy being the idiot he was, somehow brought life back into Laboons life by being himself. The Will of D was truly alive and well. That reminded me that I had to talk with a certain doctor.

"Hey Crocus" I started, "Yeah ?"

"I saw your old wanted poster, and I know you were a doctor on Gold.D Rogers ship." Placing emphasis on the D. I swallowed my courage. "Monkey.D Luffy, my captain. He is the living proof that The Will of D is alive. Don't forget that old man." His eye's widened, surprised I knew about the sacred tale.

"How the hell does an east blue brat like you know about it ?"

"I know about the Will of D from a friend. But that's not what I wanted to talk about." Kneeling forward, I continued placing as much hope and desperation in my tone. "Please, I want to protect my crew to best of my abilities, so can you please teach me about Haki ?"

He stared at me for a moment as he processed my words.

And waited

And waited

And waited

And used the same joke again just for old time sak-

And he burst out laughing.

I gave him a flat look."What ?"

Wiping away tears of mirth he turned to me. "Girl, I can't do that. I don't know how you even know what you do know now, but the only thing I can tell you is this. I know that the Will of D is alive and thriving but don't ever-"

"WOAH!"

Grasping me by the collar and pulling me close, until we were face to face, his devoid of any laughter, "EVER talk about it to people you don't know. People have died for that knowledge, and more people will. Be careful of the knowledge you have now. I don't want to know who your friend is but take my words to heart. Be Very careful." Turning to his newspaper, "and to answer your question, I barely can use Haki now, much less teach it."

I still had a question in mind. "Last question, I promise. But is our captain like your old one?"

He chuckled, then started laughing which then turned to straight up guffawing. During so, I sneaked the piece of paper within his newspaper. "It's like looking into a mirror." He whispered softly.

Turning back to his old gruffly self, he pointed behind me. "And go help your Captain over there, your crew is trying to kill him."

"YOU MORON!"

"THAT WAS OUR MAIN MAST YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER IDIOT !"

"AND YOU BROKE OUR ONLY COMPASS!"

I sighed to myself.

"Here, You can use my old log post, It's the least I can do on the matter with Laboon."

Nami smiled at him, "Thanks, old man Crocus, I don't know what we would have done if these IDIOT'S-" Grasping Sanji and Luffy by the ear, "-if they broke our only way out of here." Now glaring at the pair with the intensity of a Warlord, she continued. "Now say, THANK YOU."

"Shishsishishi, Thanks, old flower man!" / "Thanks, shitty geezer."

After fixing the neck of the going merry with some steel thanks to Usopp, we were off.

"SEE YA OLD MAN!"

"GOODBYE CROCUS!"

"REMEMBER OUR PROMISE LABOON!"

BWOOOOOOAHHHHHH !

And with that, we turned away. Off to whiskey peak!

It was normal sailing from then onwards. Well, as normal as it could be with the straw hat pirates. Zoro was sleeping, Usopp was still working on his contraption, and Nami was working on yet another map. This was peaceful.

Remembering my purchases from the island, I headed into the men's room and took out some of the jars that I bought. Taking out a few cardboard tubes, I tested the thickness and deemed it okay for what I was about to do. With the jars under my chin and arms, walking back up to the kitchen was a challenge but I ended up finishing anyway. I turned to Sanji as I placed them upon the marble table.

"Hey, Sanji?" I asked experimentally,

"Yeah?" He muttered as he began grounding up peppers into a grinding bowl.

Hoping he wouldn't kill me for this, "Could I borrow a frying pan? I need to make a few things."

"Yeah, sure why not." He continued as he began chopping up carrots, with gusto. "I don't need all of them. Just don't get in my way."

Whew, I thought he would have killed me for wasting materials...

But off to work I go!

Mixing in the plant fertilizer with the sugar, in the ration 2 to 1, I placed some water into the frying pan as I heated it up. Rubbing my hands together, I prayed it wouldn't fail and poured the solution into the pan. The effects were instantaneous. The solution turned a murky brown, and after a bit of mixing began turning into soggy solution. Stirring it a bit more for luck, I took the pan outside and poured the mixture into the cardboard tubes.

Ripping off some fibers of rope, I placed it into the cardboard tubes as the solution hardened.

Hmmm. Explode or no explode?

"Meh, why the hell not." Sealing the tubes with some more cardboard, I stood back and admired my handiwork. I decided to test one of them out. This was going to be fun~

Lighting the fuse of one, I waited until the fuse neared the end of the string and threw it overboard, as far as I could.

"FIRE IN ZE HOOOOLLLLEEE!"

WOAPHT!

The tube exploded as the pressure within it was reignited. The chemicals within it reacted, sending a wave of heat crashing upon the deck. As the tube started falling into the sea, I could see the smoke wafting off it. Good. The smoke bomb worked! Not powerful enough to break a wall, but powerful enough to send an enemy reeling from it.

I chuckled to myself as I absorbed the others, vowing to myself to make more. Explosions are fun, but homemade explosions left you with a feeling parallel to joy.

I realized Sanji was calling us to dinner.

My eyes widened. Aw shi- "FOOOOOOODDDDD!" shouted Luffy as he bowled me over. Again.

"Owwwwwwwww." I whimpered once again, peeling myself off the deck.

-0-

As the sunset fell and once we were approaching nightfall, Zoro came up to me where I sat upon the deck, sitting cross legged and watching the stars with repressed glee. You couldn't see this on earth.

"Hey Alex," Said Zoro looking at me with a grimace.

"Whats up?" I turned to him, noticing his grimace. "-is something wrong?"

"I just want to say I'm sorry." He sighed out.

"For what?" Tilting my head, utterly confused.

"For this."

WACK !

Then everything became darkness.

" ...s...he...uncons... ?"

" ye...ink...so."

" Brin...hi...o...he...wo...room."

SPLASH !

WATER UP! MY!

NOSE!

"GAH!" Jesus, water was NOT good wake up call!

Groaning as I blinked blearily, I tried to remember what the hell just happened to me. Suddenly I noticed where I was. In the woman's room. What ? Then I noticed how I was tied to a chair with the ropes digging into my skin. Blinking away the dregs of sleep, I started looking around the dim candle lit room where I saw the minibar and the bookshelf bursting with books beside me. Turning back to look at my binding's I noticed how tightly wound they were and tried to stand up, without avail. I sniffed the air. Was that smoke?

"What the..." I murmured under my breath. I tried to calm my heartbeat and decided to concentrate on my cards, where I could summon them to cut me out. I closed my eyes and felt the already familiar tugging sensation in my arms, but no card appeared out of me. I turned to see where my cards were and to my horror, I saw a foot upon the struggling cards, restricting them from being summoned. Slowly looking upwards I saw myself facing a witch and a swordsman. Who were apparently very peeved at me.

I took in a breath. "So uh, good morning?"

Nami stuck her staff under my chin and tilted my head upwards. "Who the hell are you?" She said it more of a statement rather than a question.

"I uh- I'm uh Alex Jones?"

Pushing her staff deeper into my throat, she glared at me. "Wrong answer."

Now panicking, I hastily replied."I swear! I'm called Alex, and I really don't know what you're talking about !"

Stepping up, Zoro took out some familiar papers and began reading them out. 'Ever wanted to get sucked in a portal that gets you so nauseated that you want to die," He turned to me, "-into the Grand world wonderful world of one piece?'

As if it was on fire, the blood evacuated from my face. They must have fallen out when I took out the jars.

Taking out another, "Skipping ahead to where this gets important, 'Anyways, inside the chest should be something that I think you will enjoy. Since you are just a fragile human from outside this universe, I thought you could use an upgrade of sorts' Then turning the paper around, "' I don't care if you barely remember the story at all, love Adam.'"

He looked at me with disdain, "So who are you really, Adam? And what is this 'story?'"

Nami continued, " I had my suspicions at the Red line, but this just proves it. You knew about the calm belt, and even you said that there was no way to cross it. So how could you," Sticking her staff even deeper, I started choking, "-get to the east blue? Marines have a secret method of crossing it, so you clearly must be one, so my question is," grasping the lit candle and positioning it under her chin, she looked more like a devil than a navigator. "-WHY."

"I...N'T ...EAK" I ground out, or tried.

"Speak up."

"Oi witch, he can't speak. You're choking him." Zoro noted as he watched my face slowly turning a lovely shade of blue.

"OH! Sorry!" Nami replied sheepishly albeit still mad

Coughing up a storm, I glared at her.

"For starters, I promise I'm not a marine, even though I know how they do cross the calm belt with ease."

"How?"

"It's simple, ever heard of something called seastone? Nevermind I know you don't but essentially it's a piece of stone that's as hard as diamond but still gives out the energy of the sea. It nullifies devil fruit users, and Zoro can prove it" Turning to him, " You saw Smoker use his jutte which was embedded with seastone, which was able to hit Luffy."

He nodded slowly, "He's telling the truth."

I continued sawing through the ropes. "Well, the marines placed seastone on their ship's hull in order to disguise themselves. The seastone emits sea energy which ..."

She gasped and hit her palm with a fist "And it tricks the sea kings into letting them pass through !"

She turned her glare to me intensity redoubled. Oh god.

"Then how do you know all this? You clearly aren't from the east blue nor Grandline, so who are you really, Adam ?"

I sighed. Guess I had to tell them.

I looked at them with weary eyes. "If you really have to know..." Standing up, "HEY!" / "What the..."

Throwing them the remains of the rope, I turned back. "Do you have my bag? What I'm about to say will be very shocking and may seem completely impossible, so I'll need proof."

Throwing me my black bag, Zoro looked at me warily but sat down on the couch.

"My Name is Alex Jones. I am a Sagittarius, I was born 19 years ago," I took a deep breath. "and I come from a different dimension."

Silence. Ok then.

"Alright, I can hear you thinking, what the hell? So this is my answer. Motioning Nami to look, "Nami, you can see how large this bag is right? This is a finite source of space right? There is no possible way for me to place all of these books," Waving my hand behind me towards the bookshelf" into this small bag right?"

"No ?"

"Then prepare to be amazed." I threw all the books within the bag. Took some time, but as time went along and my bag seemed to keep taking in books, her eyes widened. See my point? Throwing them all out I continued. "This bag here was given to me by the same deity that gave me those notes" Waving at the black notes "and my "upgrade" " I motioned to myself. Throwing the bag to Zoro, "Here, try to destroy this. I promise you, it's impossible."

"ONI GIRI!"

Wincing at the dust that just appeared, I lifted up the bag and gave it to him. Completely intact without a single tear.

"Wh-what ?"

"Now believe me?"

Even more silence.

"Alright, continuing on. Have any of you know what parallel universes are ?"

Silen-Ok, jokes dead now.

"A parallel universe is where 2 universes that are exactly the same except for a minor detail," I explained as I paced around them. An example could be if Luffy never met Coby," Zoro looked at me confused. "and carried on with his journey, or if he left Nami alone." I noticed her flinch.

"Another example could be if this entire world," Spreading my arms out, "-Was completely made up and was only known through another, by a story about a specific boy and his adventure to become the pirate king." I looked at the fully. "A universe where I come from."

"OH, So their mystery universes!"

What.

Turning back to where the voice came from, I looked behind the bar. Inside was a certain cook, sniper and rubber idiot.

"That must not look comfortable," I noted as they started to disassemble.

Facepalming themselves, "Godamn it Luffy..." they chorused.

"Well, the cats out of the bag." Leaping out, Sanji looked at me. "So, you're saying that you read our adventures? You know exactly what will happen now? You even know our pasts?"

"Uh, more or less, but I barely remember the stories now. Hell, I don't even know yours!"

Chewing on filler, he looked at me. Expression unreadable, "Who is my father then?"

"The only father figure I ever say was Red-leg Zeff. And he raised you well." I smiled.

"So you know all our pasts? Prove it!" Cried Usopp as he looked at me suspiciously.

"Zoro and Luffy met when a certain spoiled brat named uh, "I looked at them " Was it Helppemo or Helmeppo? I really can't remember. Anyways, the kid made a deal with you so you could protect a little girl. You would have no food nor water for, uh... I think a month? And he would set you free, but he lied and planned to execute you right?" Zoro paled.

Turning to Nami, "Nami met Luffy when she stole Buggy the Clowns map, and you" Mentioning to Usopp "Met upon your birth island, where, and give me a moment" I coughed, "THE BULTER DID IT! To be more exact, tried to kill Kaya, your friend to gain her inheritance." I looked at their awe struck faces. "Did I prove my point ?"

"Wait, then how did you come into this world?" Usopp asked.

"By the deity I talked about. He said that if I reached Raftel, I would be able to return to my dimension and travel between these two." I looked at them all. "That is my story how I came to be."

Silence filled the room like a gas chamber, and just as deadly. They looked at each other with unreadable expressions for a while, and I could feel the sweat coming down my back. I could see their minds processing the facts as they looked at me, silently judging me. The tension started to rise and the silence carried on for a few more minutes, but I couldn't take it anymore.

"ALRIGHT! I CAN'T TAKE IT!" I shouted out, kneeling on the floor. I started begging."Whatever you do to me, please don't kick me off the crew!" I looked at them desperately. "I used to be nothing before this and I wa-"

"What are you talking about?" Luffy asked, tilting his head to one side.

"Why would we do anything to you ?" Zoro continued as he looked at me stupefied expression.

"...What." I whispered hoarsely

"Who the hell cares? I want to know what happens to us in the future!" Nami giggled out, as she grabbed me by the collar, "Tell me! Do we get rich!?"

"I just want to know what types of woman that we meet!" Sanji crowed out, "Do we meet women on our trip!?"

"Yeah!" Continued Usopp, "What adventures are ahead of us-"

"HEY!" shouted Luffy, "No spoilers! The trip won't be fun if we know what will happen!"

"...what."

That was when it hit me. Throughout all their bickering, they didn't care. They didn't care even if I came from another universe. I placed my hand upon my face and started tearing up. This is one of the most heartbreaking moments that I ever had the privilege to ever be bestowed upon. Even on earth, I was ignored by almost everyone. Opening up my fingers, I saw them looking at me expectantly.

... Oh, what the hell. Why not, right?

Wiping away my tears, I smiled and turned to Nami, placing my arm around her. "Nami, my dear witch,"

"OI!"

"How does having this entire ship bursting full of pure, undiluted gold sound like to you?"

"! #$%^&*()_+! #)$." she said(?)"

"... Ok then."

I couldn't describe WHAT THE HELL came out of her mouth, so I'll call it a shriek.

Judging by her shriek(?) of joy that deafened us all, and how she jumped a full 3 meters up into the air, I could see she was.

"Usopp, You will forever be one of the weakest crew members on this crew, but even then." I paused for dramatic effect. And put my arm around him. " In the future, you WILL be known as the Sniper king" Waving my hand in front of him, he looked into nothingness, and into the vision, that I was painting for him.

"Sanji, you will meet the fabled mermaid princess in all her glory, the one that you have dreamed of!" I turned to him, bemused. "I literally don't know what else to say."

But he was already in his "Hurricane of love."

Stepping onto the couch and up on the bar table, I looked at them all. They were real. Not apart of a comic, but real. Real people with real feelings with real personalities. I laughed as I realized the implications.

"Listen up! I can say this for a fact." I took a deep breath. "One piece exists."

The room went silent. As what I said washed over them. The mood went from happy to awe with just that.

"Now, I don't know whether or not if it's on Raftel, but I can say that it exists, and is just waiting for us to find." I turned to Luffy, and looked him in the eye. "You Monkey D. Luffy will become the pirate king, and that is a fact that the world has yet to accept. I don't know why, but you are just like your predecessor, Gold D. Roger. Never stop fighting for that."

"Don't worry!" Luffy grinned back. "Even if I can't win, I can rely on you guys to help me!"

And with that, the mood went back to fun and laughter. This was a good day.

That was until we heard someone sneaking above our heads.

-0-

"Miss Wednesday, are you SURE that this is the right pirate's ship? Muttered Mr. 9 as he strolled around the deck, poking at the tangerine bushes.

The first few rays of dawn were on the horizon, and they had snuck on the night before. As they had realized to their horror, without their log post, they were doomed to be forever lost. That was until they saw the familiar pirate ship, and planned to ask for a ride back to their town.

"Yes, I'm sure. They even have the same straw hat that their captain wore, and they are the only pirate ship around!" Vivi muttered back.

"But the ship seems deserted. So where are they?"

"Right behind you." Sanji acknowledged.

"GAUHH !"

Needless to say, they were shocked.

Now kneeling onto the wooden deck, they looked at us desperately. "We lost our log post upon this ship, and we have no way home. Without anything to guide us, we have no chance to return home. So can you please, out of the goodness of your hearts, take us home?"

Nami looked at them sheepishly, "Well, we accidentally broke our Log post, but do you still want a ride?"

"W-WHAT!? ISN'T THAT OURS?" / "HOW ARE YOU BREAK SOMETHING THAT ISN'T EVEN YOURS!"

Nami leered at them and laughed, "Also, did I mention we have another ?"

Now kneeling even further, as massive sweatdrops (Goddamn, I needed to ask Chopper about this shit!) formed on their brow, "W-we be-beseech your kindness mad-madame."

Luffy stood up. "Ok, why not?"

And as simple as that, we had a faux prince, and a Princess in disguise, fighting for her country within our ship.

...

I still can't believe I can write this seriously.

(A/N : The next scene will only make sense if you have heard of the song "It's gonna get weird" or have watched 'gravity falls'.")

A omnipotent Dorito from another realm flew over the sky, ready to watch the chaos that was about to unfold, with glee.

As we fell asleep under the stars, snow fell overnight.

It was snowing. In the middle of the year. Real snow, that piled upon the deck. Snow. In the middle of the year.

"..."

"Holy shit, it's freezing out here!"

Ah yes, the grand line. Where common sense dies.

The cold became apparent to us when we heard Sanji shout out in alarm as his bare feet hit the floor. I think he may have even shrieked a tiny bit. Anyways, that was how we soon realized that we had to start shoveling out the snow in order to keep afloat. That was also how we came to realize how massively fucked up this ocean was. That led me to watch the boisterous crew bemused, as they had their first interaction with snow. I sat upon the railing watching Usopp build his masterpiece of a snowman as Luffy built his own. Sanji was shoveling snow to "aid his fair lady" as the lady herself stood in the kitchen, wrapped up in layers. Zoro was sleeping.

That led me to watch the boisterous crew bemused, as they had their interaction with snow. I sat upon the railing watching Usopp build his masterpiece of a snowman as Luffy built his own. Sanji was shoveling snow to "aid his fair lady" as the lady herself stood in the kitchen, wrapped up in layers. Zoro was sleeping soundly, snow piling up on him.

"NAMI?," Shouted Sanji, "How much longer should I continue my snow shoveling, My love~"

"Until it stops snowing Sanji."

"YES, MADAME~!"

Ah, the smell of romance. It was sickening.

Smiling to myself at the antics of the crew, "No puppet strings can hold me down~, so patiently I watch this town~, Abnormal will soon be the norm~, Enjoy the calm before the storm~~~." I sang underneath my breath as I drank hot cocoa. It was relaxing.

The Dorito started singing.

"TODAYS JUST SO WONDERFULL. I FEEL LIKE CHUCKING, HA. HA. HA. HA."

As flakes of snow landed in my hair, I sighed into my cup. What could go wron-

"SNOWMAN PUNCH !" And with a flying carrot, Usopp's masterpieces (That oddly looked like Kaya) head was blown right off its neck.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR ?!" Shouted Usopp as he drop kicked Luffy's snowman. Snow flew everywhere, including into me. And into my drink, spraying me with steaming chocolate. That hurt.

Ah, Murphy's law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I felt my eye twitch as I gripped the cup handle, with a tad bit more force than was strictly necessary.

Seeing the two idiots start to fight dangerously close to me, I jumped off and headed towards the kitchen, where I hoped some sanity lay before me. But even their stupidity couldn't stop me from enjoying the snow. It had been years since I had played with it and it didn't look as if it would stop for a while.

"I FEEL ALL FUZZY INSIDE LIKE A DUCKING, FILLED WITH TA-RAN-TULAS~"

CRACK !

Looking upwards, I saw a flash of lightning. Ah, yes, this where the grand line insanity starts, I thought to myself. Mother nature will soon be taking shits upon thyself. I sighed. Turning back to the door, I made to open it, but my gut told me not to, and my hand hovered over the ornate handle.

"AUUUUGHHHHH!"

My gut was right. I recoiled as out flew an enraged Nami, clutching her arm, while looking at the Log post.

"BUT NOW THAT I'M HERE,"

"TURN THE SHIP 180 DEGREES NOW!" She shrieked.

"What, why? Did we forget something?" Luffy asked, oblivious to the events.

"NO YOU IDIOT! THE SHIP SOMEHOW TURNED ITSELF AROUND AND IS NOW HEADING AWAY FROM OUR DESTINATION!" Nami shot out.

"TODAY IT'S GONNAAAA,"

"Looks like you've been played by the waves," Vivi smugly mocked. "Nothing is normal in the grand line. You can't trust anything," pointing to her Log post. "But that."

She should not have said that. Annnnndd that was a tick mar- no, 2 tick marks. Hoooo boy.

"STOP ACTING SO HIGH AND MIGHTY, AND START HELPING US OUT !" And with a kick, 2 people flew out the room. As they sailed through the air in a perfect rise, I had to stand there and watch as they hit the main mast. I turned to congratulate Nami. "Nice kick, perfect stance and did you take lessons?"

"SHUT UP AND GET TO WORK!" she screeched.

"GET."

"Hey, uh Nami?" Usopp asked as sweat started to form on his brow, " I think the wind's just changed!"

"That can't be ?" Nami wondered as she lifted her arm, and widened her eyes and she confirmed the truth. "What ?!"

The wind started to pick up speed.

"WEIRD."

"Ah, the first breeze of spring." The pair beamed out.

"WHHHAATTTT!?"

"ZORO, WAKE UP! IT'S AN EMERGENCY!" Usopp spluttered, as he raised the sails.

Mother nature's alter raging ego and Poseidon decided to make a baby. This was the baby.

"ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD!"

"NAMI-SWAN, THE SEA'S RISING AGAIN! AND NOW THEIR'S FOG COMING TOWARDS US!"

Zoro slept soundly.

"NEVERMIND, MAKE THAT A SEA OF ICEBERG'S!"

"WHATS WRONG WITH THIS OCEAN?!" Nami shrieked as the wind's shifted yet again.

"WE CLIPPED THE ICEBERG! WATERS LEAKING IN!"

"LOOK AT THESE THIS BESEECHER, THEIR AIN'T ENOUGH FEATURES"

"GO FUCKING FIX IT THEN!"

Zoro slept soundly.

"EAT UP! WE NEED TO RE-ENERGIZE!"

"IT'S GONNA GET DIRE, LOOK AT THIS FIRE"

"IT'S SUPPPERRR HOT RIGHT NOW! IN FACT, THE SAIL'S ON FIRE!'

"WATER, WE NEED WATER!"

"GRAB AHOLD OF SOMETHING, THE WAVES RISING AGAI-"  
SPLOOSH!

-0-

"LOOK AT THESE CREATURES, NOT ENOUGH FEATURES ,"

"NAMI! ARE CATS AND BEARS SUPPOSED TO LIVE ON ICE?"  
"WHHHHAAATTTT?!"

"CATS SHOULD BREATHE FIRE, BEARS SHOULD SING CHOIR! "

"AND ARE CATS SUPPOSED TO BREATHE FIRE?"  
"ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETH-"

"NOW THE BEARS ARE SINGING!"

"LAA~ LAAA~ LAAAAA~"

"WHHHHAAATTTTT ?!"  
"You know, they are actually pretty good!"

Luffy stuck his head out, in the midst of a storm.

"HEY BEARS! DO YOU WANT TO BE MY CREW'S MUSICI-"

WACK!

"SHUT UP AND START ROWING!"

"VERY GOOD! PRACTICE TOMORROW AS WELL!"

-0-

"LOOK AT THIS SHOWER, FILLED WITH MY POWER"

"THE WIND IS GETTING STRONGER NAMI! AND THE WHIPSTAFF JUST BROKE AGAIN!

"THE RAIN IS REALLY COMING DOWN NOW!"

"HURRICANE DEAD AHEAD!"

"Does the dead refer to us?"

"SCREW OFF!"

-0-

"MAN MADE TORNADOES, THIS SONG'S TURNING ALLEGRO!"

"NAMI, TORNADO'S ARE FORMING IN FRONT OF US!"

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS OCEAN ?!"

"Mother Nature, why you got to be such a bitch ?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND HURRY UP WITH THE SAI- GET DOWN! HAILSTORM!"

"Uh, Nami this may be a bad time, but the ship's leaking again."

"AAUUUUUUUGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

-0-

MANDELBROT RAINBOWS, SCREAMING TORNADOES!

"Hey Look! RAINBOWS! LET'S GO THERE!"  
"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU LUFF-" I interrupted her rant.

"So, uh. Am I hallucinating, or are the tornadoes screaming?"

"THEY ARE FUCKING TORNADOES, OF COURSE THEY'RE FUCKING SCREAMING !"

"No, I meant that they are literally screaming. Like screaming obscenities at each other."

"FUCK YOU !"  
"GO FUCK YOURSELF!"

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

"FATASS!"

"GO SUCK ON MY LEFT NUT!"

"Do tornadoes even have nuts?" I wondered, unable to help myself.

Nami started crying.

-0-

"LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE, PUNY AND FEEBLE!"

"Why is it calm now?" Usopp wondered.

"Yeah, just a second ago, everything was going crazy!" Sanji continued.

"Thank god that was it..." Vivi panted out.

Murphy's law decided to kick us in the groin.

"NAMI, THE SEA'S ON FIRE ON THE RIGHT, AND THERE ARE ICEBERGS ON THE LEFT, WHERE SHOULD WE GO?"

"CLOSE THE DAMN SAILS AND ROW FOR YOUR LIVES!"

-0-

"LOOK AT THIS WEATHER, THERE'S GONNA BE TREASURE~"

"WHERE?" Nami screeched.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ?!" Usopp raged as he tried to keep one of the ropes from being pulled off.

"Didn't you guys hear treasure?" Nami wondered hand on chin as the rope she was just carrying flew away from her grasp.

"FUCKING HELP US!"

"THE HAIL IS BEING PLACED IN THE FIRE TORNADO AND IS NOW TRAVELLING AT US NOW AT A FEW HUNDRED MILES HER HOUR, WHILE BEING ON FIRE, AND LUFFY CAN'T STOP THEM ALL!"

"WWWHHHHHAAAATTTT?!"

Ah, that snapped her out of it. Seriously, what was that all about?

-0-

Look, I'm just a triangle trying to save you , From the delusions society gave you~

"Hey Nami?"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT LUFFY ?!"

"Can you hear singing ?"

"WE ARE NOT GOING BACK FOR THOSE GODDAMN BEARS!"

"No, I mean the triangle guy up there." He pointed to the pitch black sky, as it threw rain upon us.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ?!"

"He's saying something about a, uh, d-de-delumion ?"

"SHUT THE HELL UP !"

-0-

"GRAVVIIITTTYYYYSSS AN LLLIIEEEE, SOOOO ISSS THHEEEE SKKKKYYY"

"Is this a bad time Nami?" I asked cautiously, as the tornadoes that were cursing at each other formed around us, trying to throw the Merry at each other.

I pointedly decided to not notice the foam coming out of her mouth. Instead, I decided to press on.

"Anyways, just wanted to let you know to not worry so much, since only the first part of the grand line is like this, so uh..." I toed her experimentally with my foot, and waved my hand through the air, referring to what was around us. "Just live through this?"

I should not have said that when we were doing a loop de loop in midair.

Hey, were those flying fishes? HAH, continuity win! (DING!)

-0-

Zoro slept soundly.

-0-

"ANNNDDD ALLLLLLL OOOOOFFFF YOOOOOUUUUU SHHHHAAALLLLLLLLL...

("Raising the tune.")

DIE."

("Applause.")

-0-

Zoro slept soundly.

The sails were drawn, the sun was overhead, and the wind was blowing a calm breeze upon us.

Koi fish were swimming around us, the flowers were blooming and birds were singing.

"But on days like this, SWORDSMEN like you should be burni-"

... Shit, wrong franchise.

But still right situation.

"Yaawwwnnn~ That was a nice nap." Zoro finally stood up and stretched his limbs. He blinked at us lying upon the ground, either passed out, unable to move or incapable of human speech. Or all of the above.

"I know it's a fine day, but shouldn't you guys be on guard? It's not good to be so lazy."

I didn't have to know the story to see what everyone was thinking.

YOU SON OF A BITCH.

"My everything is hurting," I whispered as I tried to stand up

"I can't feel my anything ..." Nami moaned as she laid on the upper deck.

Zoro rolled his eyes at us and turned to the passengers, with a bloodthirsty smirk.

"What did you say your name's were again?

" M-Mister 9"

"An-and Miss Wednesday." The pair stammered out.

"Yeah, about that, " He leered at them. "I feel like I've heard of that before..." They stiffened. "...oorrrr maybe not."

They collapsed.

WACK!

"Never mind that." Nami snarled as she hit Zoro. "-did you HAVE A NICE NAP ?!"

Hell hath no fury like an enraged Nami.

-0-

"STOP HITTING ME, WOMAN !"

"TAKE YOUR GODDAMN BEATING LIKE A MAN!"

I wasn't a sadist, but that was satisfying.

-0-

It really was nice to see Zoro clutching his head as the goose eggs grew goose eggs upon themselves.

As we watched Zoro insensate upon the ground clutching his head, Nami turned to us. "LISTEN UP EVERYONE! WE HAVE COMPLETED THE FIRST PART OF THE JOURNEY. LOOK AT THE HORIZON."

And what a sight it was to behold.

"IT'S AN ISLAND!"

"I CAN SEE GIANT CATI!"

Upon the giant rocks, seemed to have been tiny needles, which made the entire structure look like a cactus. But I knew better. Each single needle like structure was a death that was planned by the bounty hunters living on that island. And who knew how many were shipped off to the marines? It was a kill or be killed island. I had to warn my crew.

Jumping on the railing, Vivi and Mr.9 looked at us gleefully.

"Now then, we ask you please to drop us off here!" Mr .9 started.

"Thank you for taking us here my honey's!" Vivi continued

Then as a pair in unison, "IF THE FATE'S WILL IT, LET US MEET AGAIN!"

And with that, they jumped off the railing and did a triple backflip into the water, and swam inland.

"..."

"Well, that was weird," Usopp stated as he watched them disappear into the distance.

I turned to Luffy. " Captain, I do have to warn you guys though, that island," Pointing behind me "-is full of bounty hunters that want to either kill us all or sell us off to the marines."

"WHHHAAATTT?!"

"I know. Zoro here, " Kicking him another time for good measure, " has met these type of people before."

"But when ?" Sanji asked, nervously sweating. "Don't they only exist on that island ?"

"That's what they want you to think," I continued as I wagged my finger at him. " those bounty hunters on that island are part of a much larger organization called 'Baroque works'. They work over several blue's, and they work completely in secrecy." Noticing Zoro stand up shakily, (Jesus, that woman can pack a punch!) "just ask him."

"Yeah, I decided to do some research after an agent decided to contact me." Looking at their blank faces he sighed. "Put simply, they have agents and bounty hunters. The bounty hunters make up most of the organization, but the real people behind the scenes are assassins. The agents work in pair's and the men are code named with a number with the woman named after dates."

"So that pair that we just helped ..." trailed off Usopp.

"Are assassins," concluded Zoro. " If the girl,"

"OI!"

"-is right, and if that island is filled with baroque work bounty hunters," He looked at us dead in the eye, "-always be on guard."

So uh. This is going to be a normal thing from now on. 7000 to 8000 but updated at a much slower rate.

If you have any questions about anything feel free to ask. I love to answer questions for fans :3

'Someone shouting in the distance' NEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!"

...

Alrighty then. Also this thing:

Crocus opened his newspaper to check that he didn't miss anything. It was rare for a New's Coo to arrive upon the grand line, but rarer to even have one appear upon the lonely rock. He noticed the paper immediately as it flew out.

Picking it up, he looked within it with weary eyes that had seen too much. Far too much.

"Now what's this ?"

"Yohohohoho, and an afro to behold."

His eyes widened as he realized the implications. Holding the paper as if it was gold, he turned back to the piece of paper, and quickly read through the rest, making sure he didn't miss a single syllable.

"Brook is alive in the triangle. He's been waiting a long time."

Crocus started to tear up. He thought the ghost of his fabled Captain came to visit him that day, only to find a crew much like his old one. But this note? This proved that the dead could still rise from the ashes.

"Just wait a little longer."

On the day that the Straw-hat pirates arrived in the grand line, Crocus cried tears of joy.

"This generation…" He whispered softly.

SCREW YOU, I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING.


	8. Chapter 8

She was a tall and slender woman, clad completely in purple with a mini skirt and cowgirl outfit, leaving very little to the imagination, with white ornaments hanging from them, complete with a cowboy hat. Her arm displayed a simple gold medallion with the letter 'N' on it. Did all female assassins wear revealing outfits to distract their enemies? Or was it just her normal outfit, as her time as a Baroque agent? Still IS her time as a Baroque agent. Time travel hurts.

But I snickered that she was under the pretext that she could seduce Luffy.

One day, she was going to join our crew, become our friend and we would all gladly die for her as we stormed Enies Lobby. But now?

She would gladly kill us all, with no hesitation.

"Nico-mother-fucking-Robin."

The words left my mouth before I could stop them, and I slapped my hands on my mouth in response. Too late though.

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. FUCK MY MOUTH. OH SHIT. WHY DID I SAY THAT?

"Who's Nico Robin?" questioned Luffy, oblivious to the events.

"YOU KNOW MISS ALL-SUNDAY?" Shrieked Vivi, aghast at my words. "HOW DO YOU KNOW HER NAME?"

My crew knew, but I wasn't willing to let Vivi know. So how could I pull this shit off? THINK YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT, THINK! I NEEDED A WAY FOR HER TO LEAVE WITHOUT CAUSING SUSPIC-

"Hey Alex, why do you look constipated?"

I face-vaulted into the ground. Using the time as I peeled myself off the floor, I kept thinking, what was the most famous thing about her?

Dusting myself off, I turned to my crew, "Haven't any of you seen her bounty poster?"

I was met by blank faces, sans Robin, who was looking at me with a tinge of curiosity.

"She had a bounty poster at the age of 8 or 9 years old, for nearly 80 million beri. Her epitaph is called 'The Devil child'. She got it from destroying 5 marine battle ships, and for associating with the Ohara clan." As everyone looked at me shocked, I turned to the woman. I was faced with a significant verdict.

I could either be merciful and either call her out on her quest to find the poneglyphs and help her, which would lead to unknown events that would occur due to me.

Or I could stay silent and allow the events of the comic unfold, leading to me knowing everything that would happen.

Such a choice ….

Empathy or Apathy.

Now this is familiar…

I started to open my mouth to initiate a reply …

"How did you know it was me?" She questioned me, lips tightened into a thin line, alongside a stare.

I nearly flinched at the sight. It wasn't a threatening stare, but a stare that promised unidentified things that would happen to me when she heard my reply. It could be for the better, or for the worst. It was truly unnerving and made my hairs stand on end.

I hoped my crew would understand my intentions and play along.

'Bring up an item that both parties would understand and enjoy, making sure that it has an underlining theme under it that people of your caliber would understand.'

"I used to be a researcher."

She raised a delicate eyebrow, interested and willing me to go on.

I started walking around in circles, "When I was a child, I was always used to love learning about history, and how the events of past generations shaped us who we are today." I spared a glance, and she looked bewildered. Good. "I was never satisfied with what I had, and I took matters into my own hands. Because of this, I soon learned the myth of Ohara. The problem was, there was little to no information about it. I checked world maps, but nothing fulfilling came up." Now I had peaked her interest.

"So, I thought to myself what if the problem wasn't the maps, but the government? The only evidence I had that Ohara really existed was from a 40-year-old book, dictating Ohara having-" I took a deep breath and looked her into her icy blue eyes. "The Tree of Knowledge."

I saw her widen her eyes in shock the second I let the last syllable roll off my tongue. I thought it was a shadow or trick of light, but she looked at me with a tilt of her head, and all thoughts about that vanished. I had her full undiluted attention.

"I read that 'The Tree of Knowledge' was a library filled with books dating back to the void century, and that only the citizens of Ohara could read a special stone that records history."

Her breath hitched...

"But that was the only hint. The government said that everyone who came from Ohara wanted to destroy the world using the information that were saved onto special stones, and that was the end of the story of Ohara."

I took another breath and steeled myself.

"And finally, my theory is that you-" I pointed to her accusingly. "-got your title, but not from destroying the warships, but from destroying," This was only going to only hurt a lot. "-Ohara."

FWIP!

"GUAH!"

My air supply was suddenly cut off. Reaching towards my throat I quickly found out why; long nimble fingers were crushing my trachea. I fell to my knees and tried to let in a slither of air, grasping the iron fingers, trying to pry them apart without any progress.

"Alex, what's wrong?!"

"Nothing really," Slipped in Robin's voice, seemingly uninterested of the morbid spectacle she was causing. "-your crewmate's just learning a lesson on false accusations."

To the others, it would have looked like I was choking on thin air, without anything noteworthy happening. However physically, she had connected her wrist to my torso underneath my shirt, and was choking me to death.

Simple.

Undetectable.

Deadly.

Dark shapes started to appear upon my vision, and left fighting upon the edges as I shambled on the ground, trying to find purchase upon the fingers that were draining the life out of me. I blacked out for a moment, but as I regained my vision, I saw that everything was fading. As my vision turned obsidian, a voice whispered into my own being.

Gives you a scope of how powerful she is eh? Why not let me have a bit of fun? Your friends are losing against her and I could easily take her out. After all, if you die, so do I. There's nothing you can lose this time, so why not let me take co-

NO.

Summoning my cards, I reinforced my neck, whilst a trio of the others came up to slice her fingers, causing her to let go, wincing at her new cuts. The hand vanished into flower petals that dissolved into the night wind.

Gasping at the intake of the precious oxygen, I shuddered at the ice - cold hands of death that were creeping up upon me, and glared at her.

"FUCKING PIECE OF DEMON SHIT OF OHARA CUNT!"

She rolled her eyes at me and turned to the rest of the crew. "See? He's fine if he can speak like that. Now ignoring that little quip at me, please calm down-" She lifted the brim of her hat off, and glanced at us, lingering her eyes on me for a brief second then back to Vivi. "I would like to offer you a path-"

"NO WAY!" Luffy shouted, leapt up behind her-

"GUM-GUM ROCKET!"

And Robin moved slightly to the left, allowing him to fly past and into the mast.

BAM!

"-Anyways, here you go,"

And tossed an eternal pose to Vivi, who caught it gingerly.

"Wh-What's this?"

"It's a log post to an island that is positioned right before Alabasta. You'll be able to skip right over your future troubles with that, and since the route you will be navigating is unknown to Baroque Works, I assure you that you won't meet any of our agents."

"B-But why ?!" Vivi shouted, confused with the gift. "WH-Why would you give such a thing like to me?"

"…. It's probably a trap." Zoro muttered underneath his breath.

"I would like to see what would happen." She absentmindedly noted as she played with a lock of her hair. We all stared at her, lost for words, (well, Sanji was already doing so, but he doesn't count.) Robin clearly had mastered the mystery aura that was currently screwing with our heads.

"Hey, gimmie that," Luffy demanded as he snatched the Log post form Vivi's grasp. He turned to Robin, with fire in his eyes. "Not only you hurt my crew, but NO ONE-" He crushed the log post in his hand.

CRASH!

"-NO ONE CHOOSES OUR PATH FOR US!"

All was silent as we admired Luffy's determination for adventure, unknowingly showing off his latent Conquerors haki. That was until a certain witch came up.

WACK!

"YOU IDIOT!" She screeched, "WHAT IF SHE WAS HELPING US!"

"SHE BLEW UP THE ROLLER HAIR GUY SO I HATE HER!" Roared Luffy, with just as much heat.

"And now I see why people ship you two….." I muttered as Robin giggled at the antics of the dynamic duo.

"Well, seeing as my help is not needed, I shall take my leave." She rose and dusted off non-existent particles of dust from her knees, and turned to me. "If you knew about the Tree of knowledge, and the citizens of Ohara, your book must have been very precious." She stated, "Do you still have the book with you?"

I shook my head, wary of her movements.

"Ah, what a pity."

And with that, she jumped onto the massive sea turtle and sped off into the distance. Where did the turtle go after the war? I was still unsure if what I was going to do was a good thing or not, but as soon as she was close to the horizon and had nearly faded from sight, I had made my decision.

Apathy?

I shouted out at the top of my lungs, "THE ONE IN ALABASTA IS NOT YOUR LAST CHANCE!"

Even I could see her freeze up from this distance away, but she kept going. I didn't know if she heard me or not, but I didn't care much. I had delivered my message which caught her attention about her history, and gave her hope that maybe, just maybe, some books had survived the annihilation of her home.

Hope was always a good stimulant.

Letting the events of the past hours catch up to me, I fell to my knees, utterly exhausted. Nearly killed several times, bones bruised, and violently tossed about the deck. Waving off my crew's questions if I was alright, I let my thoughts return. This was a painful life, but one with adventure in it.

I smiled wearily as I headed into the men's quarters, the hammock waiting dutifully. Creaking as I climbed into the net, I fell asleep and welcomed the familiar darkness.

-0-

"WAKE UP SHITHEADS! BREAKFAST IS PREPARED!" / "YOU TOO GIRLS~!"

Breakfast was ready, which in turn meant, Luffy was as well.

"WOOOOO!"

THUNK!

"Oh, for fucks sake….."

I Grumbled morosely as I picked myself off the floor. Was this going to be a running gag? I mean, it was almost like a daily thing now, being woken up like this ….

Absentmindedly picking up a clean shirt, I thought about how my conversation last night would have changed her fate. She was bound to hate me, right? If she did was she even going to join our crew? Was she even going to look for the poneglyph in Alabasta? If she did heed my words, was she going to betray Crocodile earlier than usual?

"Guah…" I mumbled out, knocking my head softly across the mast.

Trying to think about all the different scenarios that would occur was useless. There were too many possibilities, too many outcomes, but no possible way to determine what would happen in the future. Doors were opened, and I wouldn't be able to close them all. I sighed. I really shouldn't have done that…

Hope had a great price to pay.

Walking into the kitchen, I barely glanced at the pandemonium unfolding around me. I was getting used to this, but was that a good or bad thing? As I picked up my normal mug and started filling it up with the sweet nectar of succulent coffee, I noticed the new additions to the table. Vivi was hesitating at the literal dust cloud that appeared over the table as the others fought over the food. Carue, on the other hand, or uh… wing? Was sitting in a corner watching the over the din, occasionally taking a sip of his water barrel as he chortled at the crew's antics.

Vivi was probably wondering if taking a piece of toast was worth the risk of losing a hand.

"LUFFY, STOP TAKING NAMI'S BACON! THERE'S STILL MORE TO GO AROUND!"

"BUT HER'S LOOK SO MUCH BETTER THAN MINE!"

"HEY, SHIT COOK! MORE EGGS!"

"FUCK YOU MARMIO! GET IT YOURSELF!"

"Oh, Sanji-kun~ Could I get some more juice?"

"AT ONCE NAMI-SWAN!"

"OI!"

"TAKE THIS LUFFY! TOBASCO FIRE STAR!"

"HOOOOOOOTTTTT!"

And as the flames of the fieriness of Usopp's famous ghost chili subsided, I handed Vivi a platter of bacon, toast and some sunny side eggs, topped with a glass of juice.

You needed to suck up to your employer, right?

"Th-thank you Alex…" She mumbled as she watched the crew, dumbstruck.

"It's horrifying and disgusting, yet you can't look away from it, can you?" I questioned, as I summoned some cards to carry toast towards me, idly picking up a knife and some jam.

She nodded slowly, savoring the taste of Sanji's food.

I turned away, breaking up clumps in the coffee powder with a spoon.

"How did I not realize that she was Nico robin…"

I froze as I heard the whisper behind me.

Seeing that my coffee was finished brewing, I quickly took the mug, and took another bite of toast as I deftly dodged another one of Usopp's lead stars. As well as the flailing fist that followed thereafter. I quickly retreated to the other side of the room, where some sanity lay before me. Even Nami had fallen into the idiots fight. I turned to Vivi again, plastering on a grin,

"Anyways, if you do need me, I'll be up in the mast, keeping lookout, so seeya!"

Spinning on my heel and turning towards the door, I wasn't surprised that another repetition of "FUCK YOU MOSSHEAD!" and "SHUT UP ERO-COOK!" started up once anew, I hastened my pace towards the exit.

Vivi could only watch them dissolve into full out brawling.

I could only hope that would be enough to keep her from thinking about the assassin.

-0-

Ah, this was the life. Sun flying overhead, cards fanning me as I sipped my tea, I let the breeze of the southern wind cool me down as I stared into the distance, visioning the last island of One piece. No one knew what it was, yet everyone knew it existed. A few simple words from Gold. D. Roger sparked the dying ashes of a dead goal, into the fiery flames of piracy into succession. The pen was truly mightier than the sword. Humanity always had brought itself back up whenever something knocked it down, yet never had the courage to change completely, ridding the world of one thing or another.

I sighed. This was the complete reason why people feared others who were different, and shamed them just to indulge others into a false sense of security. Humans were weird, right?

On earth, money was god. Everyone did everything for the sake of money, and you could not live without it. Even trying to bring happiness to others, a simple matter, costed money. We would happily destroy ourselves just to satisfy our own lust and greed for money. If the whole world could not be fucking idiots for a few hours, we would have been able to solve all the problems we faced. World peace could have been easily obtained, if we could set aside petty differences. Poverty would no longer reign over parts of the world. Wars would cease to exist, and humanity would have been able to rise up as a whole, rather than the ones rich enough to afford so.

Was this world the same? The entire world government had a complete and utter monopoly over the world, and whoever stepped out of line was promptly obliterated. Celestial dragons were above the law and they abused this fact. The 4 elder stars could destroy and shape the world as they wanted to, but thankfully for the revolutionaries, that wasn't the case. Even in a world where people could change their entire being easily with a single fruit, they still wouldn't. Humanity was the same in all universes.

They wanted to change, yet fear to change themselves. What was the point of it all then? If we were never going to change our habits, why live to see the next day?

.

.

.

Wow, that got dark fast. How did looking into the horizon turn into watching humanity destroy itself lead to one another?

Thankfully, a shout brought me out of my depressing stupor.

"I'MMMM BOOOOORRREEEDDD!"

More of a scream. A loud scream. Very loud scream. EXTREMELY LOUD scream. FUCKING KILL ME LOUD scream.

"I'M SOOO BOOORRREED!"

Turns out, the comics didn't dictate the time skips between the chapters, and that we had plenty of time to train. I would normally have loved the fact that I had time to try out my new powers, but as a certain idiot kept screaming, I was seriously contemplating on turning the sadly well-known expression that he was spewing out, into his very own epitaph.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Happily enough, I wasn't the only one. The rest of the crew, (sans Vivi and Carue who had yet to get used to the crew) was all too willing to kill him. That also led them to fight again, Luffy laughing the whole time, goading them to chase him around the ship. At least they were having fun. However, being the social outcast that I was, I wasn't sure to laugh or sigh, as Luffy got his entertainment by pissing the shit out of everyone else.

Who knew he could think like that, to get what he wanted?

But I was above such little things. After all, I couldn't run for shit. I was a standstill and hold the fort type of person, and him blaring out his mood-swings, still wasn't enough to get me off the foremast and away from my tea. Very little could take me away from my drink. Tea and Coffee took priority.

So, I sent my cards to aid them.

"AUGH!"

The sound of a face slamming into the deck of the Merry was deeply satisfying.

.

.

.

So were the sounds of a rubber dingus being slammed into a sheath, staff and a leg.

Sipping on tea as I turned to the horizon, I tried my best to drown out the sounds of hostile activity next to me. And tried to steer my thoughts away from depressing issues, by thinking about the fact that I had powers.

Heh.

I had superpowers.

Can't believe I can say that with truth.

-0-

WHIP!

THUNK!

FWHIP!

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

FWIP! FWHIP!

After absorbing my bo, I was pleasantly surprised I could also control my bo as well, and I had been pitting them against my cards. It took more effort to control things that were heavier, and I could start feeling fatigue catching up as my respective weapons hovered in the air. My bo was much sturdier than the metallic cards, but they were more agile. It was more or less a fair fight, but trying to pit my main weapons against each other was the equivalent of an upgrade of playing with toys by yourself.

If I could control all of their actions consciously, why not try to control their actions unconsciously? If I could achieve that, then I would have to worry less about protecting myself via reinforcement, and focus on a tactic that suited the better half of both my close combat and my abilities.

That led me to start meditating while focusing on my weapons, hoping for them to start moving around by themselves, without directly thinking about them. It was irritating. How was I supposed to concentrate on something, while focusing to NOT concentrate on something? That led me to start drowning out all other sounds and focus on the horizon. But the occasional stray thoughts of my weapons kept flying in, and I was quickly losing my temper.

Especially when my bo would start denting the cards. I would have to stop everything, and concentrate upon the card, manipulating the molecules between the iron particles, slowly turning the card with an indention back in a flat surface, making sure to keep the edges sharp. My only ranged weapon were these cards, and I wasn't willing to have a new weapon on board until I could control them both. I needed some time off from meditating, which lead to me focus on my powers specifically. Speaking of which,

How the hell did I hit Smoker?

That was an underlying question that laid behind my head, never really popping up as the hectic ride of the red line and the whiskey peak fights were occupying my head. But now that I had some time to concentrate, that was a good question. I frowned in concentration. Thinking back to how Rayleigh taught Luffy, "It forces the person into being, allowing you to hit them." If Haki could have been used by anyone in this world, was it limited to people into this world? Or was I granted the ability to do so as I entered this world? Or was it that even on earth people had to ability to do so, but was known as chi, placing energy into attacks, letting them hit harder than they normally could?

So many questions.

But that still didn't explain how I, someone who had arrived a week prior, learn to use it. It took the whole crew an entire 2 years to fully master it, which left only the devil fruit to explain how I was able to. I stared at my palm. Flexing it slowly, I took out another card and placed the freshly undented one back in. Playing with the card, I looked at my hand, turning it ever so slightly, while flexing my fingers, letting the air surround my hand.

Absob-Absorb fruit.

The whole concept of Devil Fruits only had 1 rule. I could absorb anything. ANYTHING. If I could do so, would it have been possible to absorb other Devil Fruit user's powers?

But that power only laid with Blackbeard, who had the darkness fruit, and could control black holes, allowing his to suck the powers of others. That would explain how Whitebeard's power was stolen, but could Blackbeard even do that to people who weren't at the edge of death? Could he have done it to a healthy Devil Fruit user? Would it kill the user, or would it just nullify their powers, leaving them incapable of using the powers anymore, but still had the hindrance of seastone, and still wouldn't be able to swim? Was his Devil Fruit that powerful?

I shuddered. His powers were truly fitting for a tactician, able to control other powers than his own. He could probably think of a million ways to use it, and still have more to spare.

But that still didn't explain how my fist made contact. Was I able to nullify powers, but unable to take them away? That could explain how skin to skin contact was able to, but my bo wasn't. I grinned. If I did nullify has powers, was I able to use his power as well? The book said that I could absorb and manipulate anything that I had absorbed, so could I use his power? Or would it have been a less powerful ability, unable to manipulate smoke, but able to turn my body into smoke? I shook my head. I needed to test this theory first. Sadly, there was only a Paramecia Devil Fruit user on board, but it would have to do.

Hands in my pockets, I jumped off the mast, and sent my cards to make an impromptu walkway to the head of the ship, where a certain captain was watching the waves. As the sea rocked the ship melodically, I sighed contently as I hopped from step to step, as I breathed the salty cool breeze, steeling myself for what was going to happen. If this worked, it would be incredible and open new doors, bringing new opportunities. I could hardly contain myself.

"HEY LUFFY!"

His head flew upwards at the sound of my voice, neck stretching from the Merry's head, turning to look at me.

"What's up Alex?" His eyes narrowed "If it's for my special seat, then I won't give it to you!"

I chuckled at his childish antics and shook my head.

"I just wanted to ask you a few things, but mainly about your Devil Fruit, Luffy"

He unraveled himself from the bow of the ship, tilting his head in confusion.

"But you know my Devil Fruit ability, I'm a rubber man!" He punctuated his point by pulling his cheek out a meter wide, and let it snap back into his face. I subconsciously winced, at the sound of the snap. How did he not get hurt by that?

"I just wanted to try something out, but before that, how do normal punches affect you?" I questioned, noting how he started to look bored.

He frowned in concentration, "Normal punches don't really hurt me, and bullets can't go through me anymore, so I think I can take a lot of hits!"

I smiled and nodded. If this worked, it was going to hurt him a lot.

.

.

.

Why did I smile at the prospect of hurting my captain?

Why would you not?

Ah…. Uh, Good point …

Anyways, I saw that he had started to walk away, neck extending as his body started strolling off while his face stayed at eye level. That was quite disturbing now that I think about it. Sighing at his antics, I grabbed his neck, and pulled his body back in front of me.

"I know what Makino said about manners by looking at the person who's talking to you, but that's just cheating Luffy. Keep your body facing the person as well."

He stuck his tongue out, "I know, I know, but hurry up, someone might take my seat!"

I breathed in deeply and stared at my hand, concentrating upon it, allowing myself to let the wind flow between the fingers, slowly whirring up with power. Curling back upon itself, a glimmer of white light was shining from within, revealing the veins and muscles beneath, pulsating vibrantly. "Just a heads up, this is going to hurt you-" I looked at him and clenched my hand. "-more than its gonna hurt ME!" Punctuating my last statement with a fist, I fully expected him to bend beneath my flesh, then quickly recoil back sending my arm back into me.

What I got was both terrifying and amazing at the same time. Instead of him bending, my fist had somehow solidified his surface of his skin, turning it back into mere flesh and blood instead of rubber, while my arm extended. IT FUCKING EXTENDED. Not that it was obvious, but when I felt my fist make contact, to my horror, I saw and felt my elbow slightly extend, placing even more force under my fist, knocking Luffy off his feet.

HOLY CRAP.

"LUFFY!"

Running towards him, I saw that he was sent flying back into the railing. "Thankfully not through", I thought as I picked him up.

"You ok there Luffy-"

He stared at me in horror. "How did gramps teach you the fist of love?"

I stared him in shock. My fist hurt that much?

'Wat.'

He showed me his arm, where a bruise was rapidly developing. "How did you hurt me then?"

I stared at my fist where the glimmer was slowly dying out, letting out my power.

"I-I think that my Devil Fruit might have cancelled out yours, and that I might have absorbed your powers." I stammered out, watching his bruise.

"Holy crap! So, you're a rubber man as well?" He laughed out, grinning at me.

"Sorry, about that Luffy, uh, I-I'll get back to you later," I mumbled, guilty of punching him heads over heels.

He laughed and punched my arm lightly, "Now we're even!" Then as suddenly as it came, he stretched his arms on the foremast and flew into the kitchen, shouting at Sanji for some food.

Jumping back from pain to happiness in a split second. I envied him.

Walking back up to the mast, I experimentally tugged my hand, in hopes it would stretch out. I was not disappointed. The epidermis of my skin stretched out easily, but I could still see my veins that appeared alongside it. It seemed as if the entirety of my body would stretch as well, not just the part which I would pull. Letting my skin snap back, I was surprised to feel nothing. I must have been immune to my own abilities.

Pulling on my other body parts, I was surprised to find that I could only stretch out my left arm, where my shoulder met my torso, which meant that my original theory was right. I could only control parts of the ability, instead of the whole deal. Didn't make it less powerful. My ability to absorb things had suddenly turned even more special. This was truly a Devil Fruit that could easily break the boundaries of normal Devil Fruits, leading to be one of the most powerful ones. Speaking of which, if I could control Luffy's power, could I control Smoker's as well?

I had punched Luffy with my left arm, and I had punched Smoker with my right. Was it that only my right arm could turn into smoke? Looking upon my arm, I tried willing my arm to turn into smoke, but nothing happened. Was it that I could only control the power if I had used it straight after taking in it? Did I have a timer on that sort of thing? Pulling on my left arm again, I was amazed that it had turned back into normal flesh again. Huh. I guess I did have a timer of a few minutes. But if I trained more, would I have been able to use it for longer periods of time? Either way, I could use other people's Devil Fruit, as long as I trained my own first.

It took me a moment to realize the implications of this fact.

Bawh Gawd. I was OP.

"AHAHHAHAHAHAHAAH!"

Everyone stared at me.

-0-

After learning that little nitpick, I had soon found my limits. Turns out that I could only use a single Devil Fruit power for around 10 minutes (No one had a stopwatch / heard of it), before requiring to either switch back to my own Absorb powers, or another Devil Fruit.

Awww. I would have wanted to see what would happen if I killed myself after taking in Brook's powers. Would have been cool, right? Could I have been immortal?

Anyways, I was back to topic at hand. I could control Luffy's power much easier, as I had seen him use it countless times. All I had to do was to place more force into striking something and my arm would compensate for the extra strength by extending itself with it. With that in mind, it didn't take me long to master to break the target's torso without too much effort. The key laid in winding up for an attack before using it, and within minutes, the torso of the dummy had a fist in it. Because of my rubber skin and muscles, my hand felt nothing when it splintered the wood, even without reinforcement for my fist.

The secret behind the power was that you had to stop thinking that you had normal skin, and that the laws of gravity and force stopped applying to you. When my arm had turned into rubber, the longer the distance was, the longer my arm would extend, until it hit a target, or that I reeled it back in or followed through. If I had hit a target far away, people would expect the force of the punch would have diminished greatly, then a punch from closer up. This was not the situation. Gravity had stopped applying, and my fist had just as easily cracked the wood even when I hit it from a single meter away compared when I was one end of the ship to another. That meant that the force would have stayed the same, even with the change in distance. Easy for long range hits.

Nice to know that anime physics made no sense.

Smoker's power took me a little more time to understand. His power was the smoke smoke fruit, which lead him to be able to control or turn into smoke at will. This in turn had lead me to believe that I had to extend my arm the same way as Luffy's and his power would allow me to turn my arm into smoke while my fist remained solid enough for a hit. This wasn't the case, and I sat on the foremast studying my arm. If I was to turn the molecules in my arm into smoke, did I have to also imagine myself turning into smoke to do so? Placing my arm out, I tried to imagine what Smoker felt whenever he felt his power wane and flow. Did react to being hit, whether or not he was incorporeal? If he was intangible, would his nerve cells function the same as well, that had just turned into smoke particles?

This time when I had tried to concentrate on my arm to become smoke, I had imagined the air that surround it, to pass through my arm, and turn into smoke along with it. Visualize taking a car trip and letting the air hit your face as you sped down the road. But this time, think of letting the air pass through your face and with each particle of air, let them hit your face, and drag a piece of you alongside them. I imagined letting air pass through my arm, and within moments, my arm had turned into red smoke. Huh. The smoke must have differed with each different user. My smoke was wispy and ethereal-like, hovering in midair without any real shape or form, yet I could still see the wooden planks beneath it. Waving my hand through it, I was surprised to find that it had become numb, but I could still sense each particle that went through my smoke. I willed my hand to become solid again, and turned to the dummy again.

"Let's see what you can do…" I grinned, swinging my fist into the lacquered wood.

WACK!

This time, instead of the wood cracking or fracturing, the torso had splintered at impact, leading me to turn and duck, as the wood fragments flew over the deck. Wincing at the force of the punch, I looked at the smoke again. This time, the smoke was rolling and curling up like a thunderstorm or a serpent, ready to strike at something. Looks like the smoke followed my mood, and with adrenaline running high, it was obvious why it changed. Raising an eyebrow, I picked up the target and placed it on the other side of the deck, hovered/flew/floated over towards the end and steadied my fist. Time to see if it acted the same as Luffy's.

FWIP!

Throwing my fist out, my smoke arm quickly dissipated, as the smoke mass started to thin out as it flew, and it travelled around half the deck before it fell down. Huh. Seemed that smoke had the same volume as my real arm, leaving me with less range. That would have explained why Smokers smoke was so much more thicker, the larger the mass was before transformation, the more smoke you could work with. Turning my smoke into my arm again, the smoke quickly whirled in a cylinder format, and slowly took the form of my arm again.

I wasn't a very buff guy, but I still had an above-average ratio of muscle to fat mass, back on earth. I really did need to train physically, not just mentally and Devil Fruit-like. I was only able to fight due to well known tactics and the fact that the goon's relied on their respective leaders to always do the work for them, leaving them to become reliant on them. Sprinkled with a bit of luck, I knew that I had to start training seriously. All the members of Baroque works we would fight from here on would be able to take their own in a fight. I needed to have a teacher. Vivi had a unique fighting style, Usopp was a sniper, Nami would have charged me per hour and Luffy would most likely mess about. That left me with Zoro or Sanji.

Kicks or fists?

Toss a coin.

"Meh, fuck it. Heads for Zoro, tails for Sanji." Ruffling through my pocket, I found a stray 10 beri coin and flipped it.

Tails.

"FUCK!"

-0-

"I'll see you in hell noodle legs. You will not be missed." I muttered as Sanji turned, wiping off his hands with a towel.

Rolling his eyes at me, "Shut up Alex, and start doing sit ups." He looked me over with analyzing eyes and stared at me. "You seem reasonable fit, and seem to be able to focus on your upper and lower strength in fighting. I can't say much for your arms, but your legs seem better in fights rather than running, so you need to train your core before starting on any of my techniques." He grimaced. "Or any of moss head's. Either way, you need to be able to train your core for fighting anyways, so do 30 sit-reps."

He looked at my blank face.

"NOW!"

Lying flat on the ground, I started the monotonous training routine. As I started on my 4thone, he threw a bag of rice on my legs.

"GUAH!"

"You have 25 seconds to finish that, or else I'm placing a weight on your chest." His grin turned feral. "For each second passed and you haven't completed the task, I'm adding another pound and we're going to start again."

"When the hell did you turn into Zoro?" I gritted out, trying to fight against gravity.

He responded by throwing a black training weight onto my chest and strapped it on.

"Want to speak again?"

I could only groan in response.

-0-

"Kiiiilllll mmmmeeeee …." I moaned, lying on the deck as my body just burned. Not just a single muscle, but all the muscles. ALL OF THEM. I didn't even know that I could have muscle burn in places I didn't even use!

"With your moaning, I'm tempted to." Panted Sanji, as he finished his 7th inhumane routine. I had finished my second.

"How are you only breathing harder?" I questioned, my energy not even compensating to turn my head to face him.

"Daily training, Zereff beating it into me and willpower to beat Zoro. Roll a dice."

"Ah, that makes sense. Never underestimate a friendly rivalry." I ground out, trying to stand on my shaky legs.

He turned to me with an unreadable expression. "Say that again and I'll double the routine. If you have time to mouth off, you have time to train. You had a long enough break."

I groaned.

"Or I'll tell Marmino on what you just said."

I hastily stood up and continued kicking the air on his side, facing AWAY from him. "I'M KICKING, I'M KICKING!"

He chuckled darkly in response.

-0-

"It's Nami-swan's turn to wash the dishes, so I'm going to help her." Taking off his towel, he wiped the sweat of his forehead. "When I get back, you had better finish the last routine."

As soon as he entered to lounge, and I heard the door close, I fell onto the wooden deck, utterly exhausted. "Fuck 'huff' me 'puff' sidewaaayyysss…"

I heard a knocking on the door and I turned my head to the noise. Zoro was peering through the peephole, smugly smiling, making the 'I'm watching you' sign. He started to slowly turn to Sanji and I realized his intentions.

"GUAH!" Starting the routine again, "I'M DOING THE FUCKING ROUTINE! I'M DOING IT!"

-0-

Sleep had never felt so good.

-0-

As the days flew past, we had soon arrived upon the next island.

An island with 2 giant's friends doomed to fight each other for the rest of their days.

2 assassins part of an international (Or inter-blue) mafia group

And a single FUCKING mosquito, ready to transmit a disease that would bring a certain navigator closer to death than any of us had been, that would lead us to gaining our doctor reindeer that would become our crewmate, and would save the lives of a certain snowy island where a certain top-hat clad brother was waiting for us.

One life (or close to it) for the sake of many.

Fuck me right?

"Insert useless excuse about Life being a dick to me so I can't update."

Hi. So, uh. Nothing to report, no reviews 'Insert cries of dismay here" So less work here for me to do.

Seeya in the next chapter. Whenever it may be.

Me: So what do you think of this chap?

Friend: ...

Me (Thinks its so good that she's silent): It's good right?

Friend: It's fucking horrible.

"Insert cries of dismay here"


	9. Chapter 9

"HORRAY!"

"WOO HOO!"

"PIRATES ARE HERE!"

"…"

"You know, the acting here is so bad, that it's actually good," I noted as I turned to my crew. Or to Nami and Zoro anyways. Everyone else seemed to have forgotten what we just said moments prior to this. Especially the part where Zoro said that they wanted to kill us all. Emphasis on the KILL US ALL part.

"LONG LIVE THE BRAVE HERO'S OF THE SEA!" A disembodied voice shouted out.

"Ok, now tha-that's just overselling it really," I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I can understand Luffy, but how can Sanji and Usopp be this dense?"

Zoro turned to me bemused, "Did you really expect anything else? Their ego's make up most of the space on this ship." Then turning to the clamorous crowd once more, "-having 'fans' would probably send them over the edge."

"You jerks scared us to death for no reason!" Shouted Usopp as he waved to the crowd, "Pirates are hero's here!"

Sanji was silently staring at the women, hearts in his eye. His cigarette sent up puffs of heart shaped smoke as he looked throughout the crowd. I didn't know if people could actually do that, or if anime physics decided to take a swing at us again.

Physics + Biology, y u do dis. (Chopper, I need you...)

"Eh, fair point I suppose." I tilted my head as I turned back to the crowd. "What do you think Nami ?"

Nami was silent. Peering at where she was looking into the crowd, my eyes widened. The boy. "Is the child apart of it as well?" she whispered softly, devoid of human emotion. "Or is he forced?"

I looked at her sadly. "He is. Her mother," pointing to the nun, "tricks the pirates by making them think they are weak and useless, uses the cross to spread gas, then stabs them when their back is turned." I patted her reassuringly "I'm sorry."

She looked back at the cheering crowd. I could clearly see her recalling her own brutal childhood.

"Give me 5 minutes alone with her."

I hate to say this, but you know even for bounty hunters, they could put on a good act. I mean, the party was off the roof! No, I mean seriously, somehow, when dancing within the crowd, the music had led to the roof where another man was playing a sick drum solo. And a few hunters jumped off and started wave surfing! But I suppose when they do it all the time to trick people, it kind of becomes second nature to them.

It was always good to mix work with play, but that wasn't apparently the case with the bounty hunters. Where ever I looked, it seemed as if they were observing us for the fight. In the dances, I saw they slowly surround us without fear of repercussions, but they soon parted as the music changed. I thought I saw knives and swords that were stored badly and could be seen in the reflection of the moonlight, but it turned out to be belt buckles or just loose jewelry.

I didn't know if I was being paranoid or just primed to fight, knowing what would happen within the island in the next few hours.

But damn they could cook good food! The sauce was both creamy and smooth at the same time, allowing the texture to run within my mouth. I was worried that the food would have been drugged, but when I saw the hunters dig in just as much as I did, I relaxed a little. They must have been relying on the alcohol to slow their target's movements.

Thankfully, due to the raucous nature of the party, no one had noticed that I had been pouring my drink under the table rather than my throat. Hell, not even Sanji noticed. I began to turn my head, but catching the tail end of a conversation, "-he's flirting with 20 women and the same time! What an amazing guy!"

Oh yeah... He was surrounded by women. Women who wanted to kill him. Heh. (Foreshadowing?)

I glanced at Nami and Zoro worried that would be swept away by the festivities, but they were drinking the hell out of everyone else, yet somehow staying sober. Never mind then, they could manage themselves. Feigning being drunk off my ass, I placed my hand over my head and with constant swaying and a lopsided grin on my face, I would have looked being intoxicated to the point of not being able to fight.

With my hands covering my eyes, I could search for everyone else without causing suspicion. I observed my surroundings. The level of the house was quite large, around 25 meters by 25 meters. That gave the bounty hunters plenty of room of fight in. They had easily crowded the place but left just enough room for them to fight without bumping into one another, yet still able to box us in.

Looking for Usopp, I found that he was up on a table directly behind me, with his adoring 'fans' listening to his tall tales, and feigning delight and awe at his 'adventures'. Luffy was eating, but he could easily take care of himself. I was positioned in the middle of Sanji and Usopp, with only a few bounty hunters around me. Good. Usopp and Sanji were the problem.

Sanji wouldn't kick a woman, and while I respected Usopp's accuracy with his slingshot, there was no way in hell he could fight off 13 of them at once, especially since they were so close to him. He would have been killed in 5 seconds flat. I needed to get Sanji and Usopp out of their hands and somehow still give my crew ample time to prepare to fight.

Fuck me, right?

I was visibly sweating now, thoughts mixed up as I tried to think of a solution. The atmosphere of the party was just messing with my head. I wanted some fresh air to help me think, but I knew if I left the building alone, feigning being drunk, the bounty hunters would surely pick me off first. Looking through the glass windows, the hunters outside seemed to have stopped drinking and were moving in a slow dance, subtly surrounding the building. Shit.

Careful not to appear too close to the windows, yet close enough to handle anyone who left the buil- THE GLASS WINDOWS! If I could create a distraction long enough, I could carry the pair out of the windows, where Usopp could position himself to provide aerial support up on the buildings, and where Sanji could fight the outsiders, while the trio inside the house would be able to take care of everyone else. Thankfully, there was a window right above Sanji's head, big enough for the 3 of us. I prepared the smoke bombs.

The think before you fight route eh? Bit late for it, isn't it?

My train of thought stopped. No. Not now. Not in front of everyone.

I needed my energy and mind ready for the upcoming fight. But that reminded me. If the bounty hunters did get us all to go to sleep, that would lead me to a new problem. How was I supposed to wake the others up? The sounds of gunshots and shotgun shells being unloaded, not to mention the entire population of whiskey peak, couldn't have woken them up so how the hell was I supposed to?

Thankfully, the answer came in both the most stupid and most obvious way ever. My captain, Monkey D. Luffy's sheer stupidity.

While munching on his somethingth(?) (I gave up counting) meal, Luffy turned to the chefs who were sweating at the colossal amount of food my monster of a captain was taking in. Without missing a single beat while picking up yet another piece of meat (why did they all look the same?),

"You know, for bounty hunters, you guys can throw a great party!"

The music stopped. So did the dancing. Everyone sloooowwwllly turned their head to Luffy, their faces either in surprise, horror or anger. Or all the above. The crew deadpanned as they realized what he just said. And it was so silent, you could hear a pin drop, or in this case, Luffy's bone hitting the plate.

I could see the thoughts of my crew. They mainly consisted of this: 'YOU FUCKING RETARD.'

I could also see the thoughts of the bounty hunters. They mainly consisted of this: 'IS THIS GUY A RETARD?'

My thoughts mainly consisted of this: 'Damn, this pasta is really good!'

...

Just kidding. It mainly consisted of me placing the head of my hoodie around my mouth and nose, taking out my smoke bombs and getting Sanji and Usopp, who were still surrounded by bounty hunters, to get them the hell outta dodge. LOOK MA, I CAN MEME NOW. NO HANDS!

...

My god, the insanity is back.

Anyways, as everyone started to snap out of their stupor, I saw that the fuses were nearly at their end. SHIT!

Lobbing a bomb into the mass of bounty hunters and another through the window, with a "FIRE IN THE HOOOLLEEE!' seemed to break the spell. Everyone started to scatter away from the bombs, leaving a clear path to the window.

KA-BOOM!

Smoke began piling in the room, as the chemical detonated, leaving an acrid smell as it spread through the room. As the bounty hunters realized that it wouldn't blow them all to kingdom come, they took out their weapons, ranging from bows and arrows, guns and swords.

Hell, I think I even saw a spear! But even during this critical moment before a fight, I still had to wonder how the hell did she fit it down her pants...

Visibly twitching on how they were tricked, they looked at themselves for a moment, nodded and raised their weapons.

"GET THEM-"

FOAWM!

And with that, the second bomb detonated. With the smoke surrounding their vision, they would have to stay still to be on guard to prevent any counter-attacks from loss of vision, nor would be able to fight without fear of hitting an ally. As everyone started coughing at the smoke that suddenly appeared, I focused on grabbing Usopp from behind me and kicked off the table I was at, leaping over a few heads. I nearly ran straight into Sanji but turned away at the last second.

Picking him up by the scruff of his collar, I leaped through the glass window, and into the face of another hunter who has been unfortunate to be standing a tad bit too close to the window.

"GOOMBA STOMP!"

And that was when the fight truly began. I didn't have time to check, but as the fight inside started, with a melodic chorus of "YOU MORON!", I was confident they would live.

Nice to see they survived.

I turned to the pair who were with me. "Sanji, get to work and blow a hole in their forces, and help Usopp find the highest vantage point to provide the aerial support, and I'll take care of the backup hunters here."

As Usopp started to panic and stutter, the hunters that were positioned outside started to quickly surround us, but Sanji had already started to go to town with the grunts. I had jumped out a window directly between another building, which led to us to fight in an alleyway, between the 2 main streets, which gave us nearly no room to maneuver in, yet allowed them to bring in more reinforcements.

Aw shitsticks.

I had picked the worst place to put Usopp and Sanji in, not to mention myself as well. Sanji used his legs to fight, and Usopp would have been more likely to hit us rather than the grunts as we fought. I used a bo, and with so little space, there was no way I was going to be using it properly, which led me to only be able to use my powers and good old-fashioned brawling.

As I send all my cards to reinforce my arms and legs, I threw a fallen brick at a grunts face, and let the music of cries of a broken nose and (probably) concussion join the rest of the orchestra fill the night. As my adrenaline spiked,

Something switched in me.

I smiled. This was going to be fun~

I cracked my neck and chuckled at the sight of next hunter widening his eyes as he saw his comrade fall. "Mon ami, allons-nous commencer?"

As the hunter tried to process the absurdity of words which I had just uttered, I kicked him between his legs, and as he crumbled, I leaped off the first grunt, using his head as a spring board, and sent my knee flying into his face. "HHAAA-DOKUIN!"

As the woman ducked under him as he flew towards her, she took out a dagger and moved. My arms flew up to block, and the knife skidded into the gap I left open. She seemed surprise at how my arms weren't reduced into ribbons, but only a small cut remained on both.

She tried tugging the knife out to try again, but I had already shifted my arms just slightly enough so that I held the blade between my forearms. I waved at her pleasantly, as she kept trying to pull it away, without avail. I twisted my arms slightly and the dagger snapped into pieces.

CRACK!

Now holding a broken hilt, gravity resumed and she stumbled backward, trying to regain her footing. I took this opportunity to grab her behind the collar and pulled her down to the ground, and while rolling into the main street, I could see that she was dazed from the fall. I started raining down elbows and fists upon her face and stomach, not giving her a single second to recover. I rained hell down upon her. I kept laughing.

Fwip! SNAP!

I snapped back my arm back as a hook flew downwards, where had arm had been moments prior. Leaving behind a long thin cut, I looked at the wielder. A fat man, arms twice or thrice the size of mine, clad in a white hockey mask along with a dirty white apron and rubber boots, holding what looked like a clean butcher's hook, accompanied by a rusty metal chain.

Chains clanging as they hit each other, he started swinging it in a circle around his hands, turning it into a blur.

Ah, the rip-off stereotypical 'Serial killer that worked at the butcher's.' Licking away the blood, I looked at him uninterested, more focused on his weapon. He held the chain in his left hand, sneaking around his arm and into some sort of machine stuck on his back. He swung the chain in his right hand, with a blade snapped to his arm, leaving a respectable length of chain which looked that it could easily hook people from at least 3 meters away. I liked that weapon.

I still had to ask him out of morbid curiosity, "Are you a cannibal?"

He decided to respond by swinging his hook horizontally, forcing me to duck under it. As I started to rise again, he reversed his grip on the chain, and pulled, swinging the scythe back where it came from.

"WOAH!"

Fwip!

Fwip!

CRASH!

The scythe smashed through a door frame next to me, leaving a hole. Eyes widening, as I realized his intentions, I rolled backwards, just in time, behind a pillar, as he pulled the door straight out of its frame, sending a wooden door where I was.

Panting as the door missed me by a few inches, I grinned. This was going to be good. As I opened my bo, I threw cards behind me blindly, but he held out his hook, door still attached, and let the cards embed themselves into the wooden shield.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Shit.

THFWIP!

My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when an arrow flew past my left ear, too close for comfort. Where the fuck was Usopp when you needed him?!

I could nearly see his cocky smile through the mask. Great. Now he had a shield and an ally.

"Oh, FUCK me!" I snapped out, inwardly groaning at my luck.

Something switched back in.

He tilted his head just slightly. "With pleasure." he rasped out, sounding like nails on a chalkboard.

Wow, he even had the stereotypical voice!

Now swinging the door in the air, he threw the ballistic instrument at me, where I rolled away again. I needed to get his hook away from him, but in doing so I would have to get close to him, which wasn't an option. I needed him to open a weak point, so I could-

Fwip!

CRASH!

The door frame flew across my head, and into my arm. Thankfully, the reinforcement meant that I was left with a bruise, rather than broken bones. That would also explain how it glanced off, instead of carrying through.

"GAH!" Groaning in pain, I rolled yet again, trying to regain some footing. As I ran behind a pillar, I winced as I saw a bruise rapidly blossoming, and was suddenly thankful for my protection. Sparing a glance on why he didn't use this opportunity to run me down, I saw his hook was beginning to rip up weeds and dirt, as he reeled it in, but I noticed him straining the wooden board, nearly snapping it in two.

That was when I realized that he only had three forms, hooking, pulling on the line, and promptly obliterate the shit out of whoever had been unfortunate enough to get caught. Hook, Line, and sinker.

And for some reason, I felt the need to laugh. (A/N: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, I'm a dick, yeah, I know.)

I grinned as I realized something.

He couldn't attack anything during the pull. That was when I also remembered that it was a chain and hook, so if he missed, he would have to reel in the line before being able to attack again. I didn't like the weapon now. Not only was it inefficient, he could only swing downwards once, in order to try to hit things along the ground.

CRASH!

It missed again and flew into the ground beside me. That was my chance! As he began reeling in, I used as a board as a jump pad, shoving the board further into the ground. I ran towards him, ready to end the fight. He was bigger than me and had a wider range and was probably stronger, but I was thin and nimbler. I could not make a mistake. He let go of the chain and took out his machete.

Aw shitsticks. I had forgotten about that.

Swinging it where my neck was, I stepped back just in time, but leaving a thin long cut along my neck. Hissing in pain, I retaliated by bringing my bo upon his kneecap.

Instead of screaming in pain, He grunted.

But to my horror, the flesh around his knee seemed to have absorbed most of the shock. He probably didn't even feel it.

"FATASS! YOU FATTY FAT, FAT… FAT!" Sue me, I wasn't normally eloquent when I was fighting for my life.

So, I decided to go with plan B. Picking up the arrow that had nearly implanted inside my head, I stabbed it into his shin and snapped it, leaving in the arrowhead, drawing blood.

"AUGGHH!" He roared, and as he stumbled backwards, he dropped his machete, trying to drag the arrowhead from his leg. His hands were too large though, and the sweat on his meaty hands pushed the arrow head even further in. He fell to both knees in front of me. I cracked my knuckles. And started winding up for a haymaker.

I laughed. As he looked at me incapacitated. I chucked even more. "Hello little boy. Allow me to illiterate the reflexes of the human body, and how to use them." I cracked my neck.

"Aim to hit the face. If you hit the nose, tears will well up in the target's eyes leaving them blind to an attack."

I ran my fist through his mask, breaking his nose behind it. WACK!

"If not the nose, aim for the ears. If you hit hard enough, they will hear a constant ringing, leaving them confused and dazed, and open for even more attacks"

As he tried to pry his mask off to wipe at his eyes, I slammed my reinforced arms into his ears, and he tried crawling away from me, to try to retreat. THUNK!

"After they are blinded, aim for the stomach or groin. The body will instinctually place their arms around the point of impact."

He stumbled upon his weapon, and tried to pick up his machete. Kicking it away, I stomped on his arm, then into rammed the uppermost part of my foot into his floating ribs. He groaned and fell to the ground, hugged his midsection, in hopes of reducing the pain. THWACK!

"As they hold the flesh around the point of impact, that should leave the head unprotected. If the brain slams into the wall of the skull hard enough, they will be rendered unconscious."

The last thing the fat man saw, was the blurred vision of me slamming my bo into his head, and a projectile flying towards him.

"Good night sweet prince."

Fwip!

"I think that's the last of them here, Usopp," I noted as I continued my beatdown. Soon after my fight with the butcher, the telltale sign of "YOU ARE NO MATCH FOR THE GREAT CAPTAIN USOPP!" Brought me back to reality.

During the fight, he apparently took out the rest of the archers that wanted to turn me into a pin cushion. I voiced my thanks by beating the shit out of another man who had snuck up from behind Usopp, and who was currently being pummeled right now. Looking at him with disdain, I dropped him over the ledge, and turned my attention to Usopp.

"Where are the others?" He placed his hands on his knees and viewed the surroundings, trying to calm his heavy breathing. "The fight went towards the church where the main force was. We just took out the additional forces. Sanji went to join the fight at the church, so I stayed to help you."

I smiled at him gratefully. "Thanks, Vice-captain Usopp." As he started off another chorus of "Yeah I'm the best!" (Around~ Nothing's ever goanna get me down~) I hummed, as I turned to the bodies who were all tied up, and sighed in relief. Nothing left here for us to do.

As we started walking towards the church, (They had cross's but they didn't have Christ's body upon it, I wonder how that still worked?) I was lost in my thoughts. In the story, Zoro beat them all senseless by himself, but with our help, we were bound to have finished the fight ever quicker. So, was Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine still going to arrive? Hell, was Robin even going to get here in time?

"Uh, Alex?" questioned Usopp.

"Yeah?" I replied, looking around cautiously, "-did we miss anyone?"

He shook his head and looked at me, with, uh… unease? Concern? "Were you aware you were laughing?"

I stopped in my tracks and turned to him confused. Tilting my head and frowning, "What?"

He shrugged and reiterated his point. "In the alleyway with the woman, I heard you laughing as you began to hit her, and you were even laughing as you hit the other big dude."

Shit.

I froze as he continued. "Your laugh was really weird, like it was two people laughing, so I was worried about you. Are you alright?"

Mask~

I looked at him bemused, and placed my arm around him. "Dude, I'm not a sadist. I don't find enjoyment in beating people senseless." I sighed. "I only enjoy the adrenaline rush, so don't worry, I won't go farther than I need to."

He looked at me weirdly, but decided to drop the subject.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, the schedule. I hadn't heard any explosions yet, so that means that the Mr.5 pair wasn't here yet, which means that Vivi hadn't revealed herself yet. How was I supposed to do so without causing more suspicion than I needed? I had told the crew about my secret, but I still wasn't willing to do so for anyone else. And what the hell was I supposed to say to Robin?

Too engrossed in my thoughts, I failed to notice the ivory ornate doors and slammed into the church entrance.

WACK!

"OWW!" I cried, rubbing the goose bump that had suddenly appeared. Once again, I was led to believe that the injuries made in this world were either nonexistent, or consisted of only goosebumps, and fatal bleeding and/or (but not limited) to fatal beatings. I really needed to talk to chopper about this.

Looking to see where I was, I saw the others finishing up. It was quite remarkable. The monster trio were literally cutting a hole through their forces. Luffy was beating people all over the place as he stretched his various limbs, catching people by surprise. Laughing as he jumped into the fray again, with a battle cry of "MEEEAAAATTTT!", I could see his enemies were terrified shitless.

Turning to another dust cloud in the distance, saw Zoro and Sanji were arguing (Read: Trying to kill) each other. I saw Ms. Mondays (? I forgot some of the names) unconscious body on the ground, the white of her eyes visible and foam running down her face, and knew the reason why.

As the pair fought each other, the surrounding hunters were being blown back at the sheer force of their fight. I shuddered as the pair glared at an unfortunate grunt who tried to attack them, and saw him fall to the ground, sucking his thumb, crying to himself as he rocked his body, as he witnessed the unforgettable memory which was the wrath of 2 of the monster trio by his lonesome. I nearly felt sorry. Try to find the emphasized word in that sentence.

Still better than Nami, I mused to myself. I frowned as I couldn't find Nami, but I saw her exit the church, wiping her hands off. I looked inside and saw the unconscious form of a very specific nun, her sword stabbed through the altar above her head.

So where the fuck was Vivi and Igaram?

As Zoro and Sanji moved off into the distance, still trying to kill each other, I decided to find the Alabastian pair. Luffy was having fun beating people senseless, Nami was looting the houses for all their worth, and Usopp was firing lead shells into the crowd, taking potshots, knocking people unconscious. I reckoned I wasn't needed here.

Climbing upon a tower of bodies, I hoisted myself upon a random roof and jumped on it. Looking around, I decided to jump from roof to roof until I found something. Scaling up on the ladders, it wasn't long until could see the entire island. Now that I was close, I could see the rocks up close. Cactus island was truly a fitting name.

With spheres of rocks placed haphazardly upon each other, it did look like a real cactus. But how many tombstones were upon it to be able to look like the spindles of an authentic one? And how many more were shipped off to impel down, the hell upon earth? How many innocent people, who just wanted to see the world, was stopped by the first island that appeared in the grand line?

An anime universe may have seemed alluring and amazing at first glance, but when peeling off the layers, you could find horrific things in one. What about The World Government or The Marines? They would destroy an entire island like Ohara as well as anyone who lived on it, or ever had lived on it, just to destroy 1 person. They would even sacrifice themselves to get rid of something.

I sighed. I shouldn't worry about that. A entire kingdom was in trouble, and the princess was missing. Wherever there were bodies, must lead to somewhere that I needed to go, right? Game logic, don't fail me now!

Following a bloody line, I saw a trail of bodies that seemed to have been stomped into the ground. Literally. There was a man that only has his head stuck out of the ground, alongside with his allies, with various bits and pieces stuck as well. Alongside them were their weapons crushed or blown into pieces.

Huh, looked like Sanji was a lot stronger than I thought he was.

Following the bodies, I found the pair near the edge of town, close to where Sanji and Zoro were still fighting each other, blowing away anyone who came remotely near them.

GAME LOGIC FOR THE WIN!

With quips of "Shitty swordsman" or "Shitty dartboard brow", it didn't seem that their fight would end for some time. Rolling my eyes at their antics, I walked over the other side of the roof, to the edge of the parapet and peered over the ledge. Igaram had a bloody cut across his chest, and was propping himself up with his elbows, shuddering at the blood loss. He looked over to Vivi, but she only seemed dazed and slowly regaining consciousness, alongside with Mr.9.

A shrill laugh filled the air. "Kyahahahahahah!"

Wait a moment…

My eyes widened as I realized that was Ms. Valentine laughter. When did she even arrive?! Looking over once again, I saw her.

Clad in her usual dress of a yellow dress with lemons dotting over it, lemon earrings, and white high-heeled shoes. She wore a yellow and orange hat, that (unsurprisingly) looked like a top half of (you guessed it!) a lemon, upon her blond head, and held a lime-green parasol in her hand.

Alongside her was Mr.5 a dark haired olive-skinned man, wearing sunglasses. Wearing a brown coat, I saw his insignia on his shoulder. Shit.

They were speaking to each other, and even though I couldn't hear them talk, seeing how Igaram and Vivi's face were paling, I knew. I crouched behind the parapet and prayed they didn't see me. There was no way in hell I could take on an agent, much less two of them at the same time, so I needed backup.

"I'LL KILL YOU FOR HURTING HER MOSS FOR BRAINS!"

"SHE WAS TRYING TO KILL ME ERO-COOK!"

"YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HER KILL YOU!"

Oh, yeah. The idiots. Running to the other side of the roof, I reinforced my legs and jumped beside them. Or directly on their heads.

"OI!" / "SHITTY TRAVELLER!"

Whacking their heads, I shushed them, and pointed across the building. "Did you just shush me?"

"YES! And I'll do it again!"

I quickly told them the dire situation. "Ms. Wednesday is in trouble and so is Mr.8. Some other agents arrived, and are going to kill them."

"And why should we care?"

"Because this will earn you brownie points with Nami-swan."

"AT ONCE, FOR MY SWEET LADY!"

"And why should I care? - "

"This could help you get out of your debt."

And without further ado, they rushed in. Funny how a woman could be such a good form of blackmail right?

…..

Wow, that felt sexist. Is it sexist? I can't tell.

Anyways, they rushed in, and before I climbed back up onto the roof with a ladder, I paused, and I looked at my hands. If I could have a thin layer of armor around the insides of my body, could I reinforce just a single part? Concentrating on my fingers, I wiggled them experimentally. They were a lot stiffer, but they seemed more numb. Good. This was going to be excruciating if it didn't work.

FALLLLCCOOOOONNNN PUNCH!

CRASH!

The wall broke at my point of impact, but I had achieved what I wanted: a hole for me to use. Grinning, I placed my foot through it, and began punching holes in the wall as I slowly climbed upwards.

Punch. Climb up. Punch. Foot up. Punch. Climb up.

That was the order that I used, and soon I had arrived up at the top of the building. Panting at the exertion of my muscles, I ran to the other edge, and peered downwards at the ongoing fight. Sanji was ducking and weaving over Mr. 5's violating boogers, and was even kicking up rubble or blocks of stone to take the hits, slowly gaining ground. Zoro was dodging Ms. Valentine ballistic body, and as Mr.5 explosions rocked the world, she was constantly flying up and down, riding the explosions, making her an easy target for him. It wasn't long before they messed up, and the pair realized their actions to be fatal.

Sanji had kicked up a large dust cloud and fired stones at Mr.5. As he tried to destroy the incoming projectiles, he failed to notice that Sanji had snuck up behind him, leaving his back completely exposed.

"PARAGE SHOOT!"

I winced as the momentum of his kicks travelled straight from his leg, into Mr.5's spine, and he smashed through several walls, breaking them as he made contact.

Zoro had been timing Ms. Valentines jumps, and as she hit the ground, she used the force of her own blast to rocket back up into the air, aiming to try again. It was like a messed-up version of whack a mole, I noted as I saw the cracks in the ground every time she hit it. But she was losing height with every bounce, and without Mr.5's explosions she couldn't do much. I sent out a card, and flew it over her head. As she hit the ground again, she saw the card and tried to dodge it, but without anything to kick off from, she flailed, and flew into a wall. Zoro stepped up to her, took a stance,

"ONI GIRI!"

And was left with a bloody cut across her chest.

"Well that was easy." I jumped back down. "Bring Ms. Wednesday and Mr.8 over, and we can tidy this up." I looked to my watch, nearly 10:00. Good, Robin would arrive somewhere near 12, leaving two hours left. "Sanji, help Nami raid the houses, and get all the food you can get, and once you're done, go back to the harbor. Zoro, follow me back to the harbor, we need to talk to our guests."

"And why should I follow you?"

"Because your sense of direction is so bad, I wouldn't be surprised if you could get lost in a straight line! In which you have already done so, back at Lougetown, so don't even try to talk back!"

I turned to look at the pair behind us, still unable to grasp the concept of what had just happened. The crew of pirates who had just taken their entire town out, who had single handed done so without breaking a sweat, had just saved their lives for no reason at all.

"We know your secret your majesty. Now come with us if you want to save your kingdom." I gave a mock bow, smiling reassuringly cockily towards them.

"Wh-what?" She stuttered out, with Igaram looking surprised as well. "If you know that, how Dare you talk to the princess like tha-"

I gave them an amused look, "No offence, princess, but anyone who had seen a picture of you before would have known it was you. Your disguise was shit, at least use a hair dye, right? I mean, how many people have you seen with blue hair?"

She glared at Igaram who started sweating profoundly, "What did I say? I TOLD you it was STUPID idea, and I TOLD you that someone would recognize me!"

"But princess, You need to also to stand out a little, since your royalt-"

"WE'RE UNDERCOVER YOU IDIOT !"

I laughed.

-0-

"So why should we help?" Nami asked, looking over Vivi with suspicion.

"They don't know?" Vivi questioned, looking at me lean on my bo.

I looked at her bored, "Would you rather prefer to tell the story of why you, "I gestured to her. "-a princess, would leave when your country needed you most? Or let me," I pointed to myself, "-a complete stranger do it for you?"

She stammered out, "G-Good point…." Looking around at our crew (Sans Sanji, as he was packing up the foodstuff) "My name is Nefeltari Vivi, Daughter of the king Nefeltari Cobra, who oversees Alabasta.

Blank faces met her reply. I tapped her shoulder, "Pss- We have just arrived in the Grand Line, so we know nothing about the island's here."

She blinked in understanding then turned back. "Alabasta is a country within the Grand Line, and is one of, if not one of the most peaceful countries here."

"Was," I put in helpfully/cheekily, as I finger gunned her on both hands.

She glared acidly at me. "Yes, and somehow as your friend knows, that is no longer the case. My country is not at war with another, but at a war with itself. Alabasta has had riots for the past years, and it seemed that riots, outbreaks and even cults forming from nothing."

"Then why are you here?" Asked Zoro who was looking bored at the politics, "as Alex said himself, Why would the princess abandon the country that was tearing itself apart, leave when the country needed her most?"

"Because Igaram and I found out that the country's rebellion flames were being fanned by Baroque works." She replied.

"I wanted to infiltrate the- excuse me" Coughed Igaram "ma, ma, MAHHH!"

I chuckled at his uh…. unique voice clear, "Baroque works, in order to obtain information about their leader and their intentions. Noone would believe a single claim, and without proof, anyone that I told would have been a target for Baroque works,"

'Cough, Excuse me, ma, mA MAA , Ah, that's better,' "Anyways, I told the princess to pass on the message discreetly to her father," he continued.

"But I wanted to help, so I joined him!" She exclaimed with momentousness.

"And I told you to not worry, because I was going to come back quickly and without harm!" He countered.

"IT'S BEEN 2 YEARS!"

"AND IF YOU HAD BEEN INJURED, I WOULD HAVE FAILED MY DUTIES TO THE KING!"

"I NEEDED TO SUPPORT MY COUNTRY!"

"YOU HAVE SHOULD BE PROTECTED WITHIN THE CASTLE WALLS, SAFE AND AWAY FROM DANGER!"

"HOW COULD MERE WALLS STOP CROCODILE, ONE OF THE DAMN SHICHIBUAKI!"

…

The silence was deafening.

"Vivi," asked Nami in a calm voice, if it had not been her shaking knees and waterfall of sweat cascading down her back, as well as the pitch had turned even higher, "did you just say Mr.0's name?"

"Wow, so, not only you're bad at disguises, but your also bad at keeping secrets! I mean, if an idiot like me could figure those secrets without doing anything, how the hell did you and Igaram stay incognito for so long?"

But she was too busy being strangled by Nami for her to care, and Igaram had fainted dead away, as did Usopp. Nami was punctuating every syllable with a shake, "WHY-DID-YOU-SAY-HIS- FUCK-ING-NAME ?!"

"I'M SORRY! IT JUST SLIPPED OUT!" She cried, tears comically streaming down her face.

Looking upwards upon a roof, I saw a very familiar pair of animals.

"Uh, Vivi?" I asked hesitantly even though I knew, "Does Baroque Works have a vulture and an otter in their club?"

"OF COURSE THEY FUCKING DON'T, THEIR JUST DUMB FUCKING ANIMALS YOU IDIO- "She cut herself off when she saw where I was looking at. As in her words "A dumb fucking vulture and otter" were staring at us. The duo tilted their heads, and the otter jumped on the vulture, and they sped off.

The staring was broken off when we heard our captain cry out "WOOO HOOOO! Didja hear that Zoro? A shichibuaki!"

"This should be fun" He replied, smiling with the intensity of a thousand demons.

"I wonder how powerful and cool he is!"

"SHUT UP YOU IDIOTS!" Screamed Nami, uselessly flapping her arms. "ALEX, FUCKING HELP ME GET AWAY FROM THESE MORONS!"

"And where are you going?" drawled out Zoro, looking at her with curiosity.

"ANYWHERE AWAY FROM YOU IDIOTS! GOOD RIDANCE! IT'S BEEN A FUN TIME WHEN IT LASTED," She started walking away "BUT I AIN'T GETTING INTO THIS SHIT! They don't know my face yet, so I'm leave-"

Scrit, Scrit, Scrit

To which she nearly bumped into the otter drawing a picture of her. He then proceeded to flip the papers around and show off the pictures, displaying a sketch of everyone.

"Wow, you're pretty good!" Nami said happily, as she clapped her hands in applause.

It took a moment for the last minute to catch up with her.

"PERFECT, NOW THERE'S NOWHERE LEFT TO RUN!" Nami howled to the night sky.

"So where were you exactly going to run off to?" Questioned Zoro as he stared at her amused.

"SHUT THE HELL UP, OR I'LL TRIPLE YOUR DEBT!"

"Excuse me?" Coughed out Igaram "But as our disguises are now useless-"

"It was already…" I muttered underneath my breath.

"-could you please escort the princess back to Alabasta? I truly believe that you are all very powerful, so you could easily take on any agents that they send against you, and I promise that you will be rewarded greatly!"

"Ok!" Nami chirped, jumping straight from crying and horrified to smiling at us bubbly. I shuddered at the sight. That was unholy.

"What about you Igaram?" she questioned. "I'm not going to leave you here for other people to find!"

"I will stay behind to cover your tracks, and to cause a diversion. I will masquerade as you and dress up a few mannequins to help the disguise." He turned to us." Could I borrow a few of your clothes?"

ONE HORRIFIC DISGUISE EVER.

"BAWH GAWD." I shuddered as I saw his getup.

"For once, I have to agree with the shitty traveler" cried Sanji. "How could you defile the robes of a wonderful princess like so?"

"I'm afraid I must do so in order to trick the others. Who would think that the princess would follow pirates to her homeland?"

COUGH, COUGH.

He took out a log post. "This is an eternal Log post, one of the last ones. I will use this to find my way back home. "He turned to Vivi and clasped her shoulders. "I hope to meet you again princess, back in Alabasta."

He turned to us solemnly. "I leave the welfare of the princess in your hands. Please, for the sake of our country, or for the sake of your rewards if you wish to have so, take care of the princess with all your effort. A lot of lives are at stake here."

"Are there any questions?"

I raised a hand.

"This might be the wrong time, but because since I'm an idiot that has no sense of timing, I have 2. How the hell did you change so quickly in a minute, and may I have a dummy for myself? I would like to train on the ship. It's going to get boring."

Nami clonked me over the head.

"READ THE SITUATION YOU IDIOT!"

Igaram knelt on his knees, "We're doomed …" he whispered.

I just laughed

-0-

"Awwww, he left…" Luffy whined "And he was such a funny guy too!

"I know, he's always been so dependable." Sighed Vivi, "I hope that I'll see him again soon…"

I turned to the Vivi, making sure my face wasn't going to betray my emotions.

"I promise Vivi," I clasped her shoulder, and spoke with conviction in my voice, "You WILL see him again at the end of all this."

KA-BOOOOM!

HOLY SHIT. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. The night sky turned day for a moment as my entire world rocked, and I looked at the horizon, to find nothing but fire and flames.

How the fuck did Igaram survive that? And how much pounds of C4 did Robin use to achieve that? What the HELL did she do?

"PURSUERES? ALLREADY?" Nami shrieked,

"How's the log post Nami?" Zoro demanded as he watched the inferno blaze upon the horizon.

"It-its ready." Nami stuttered out.

I grabbed Vivi by the arm, and she jerked away. "Ig-Igaram…."

She stared at the flames, biting her lip till she drew blood. I grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her till she faced me. Looking her dead in the eye, "We honor the dead when we are safe. If we don't leave NOW, you WILL die alongside with her. She did not sacrifice herself to let you die as well. IS THAT UNDERSTOOD !?" I thundered out, trying to break her out of her stupor.

HEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEHE

She nodded fervidly, but she stopped. "W-wait! Where's Carue? I won't leave without him!"

"The duck?" Nami questioned.

"Ye-Yes!"

"He's on the ship" I muttered, trying to balance the mannequins through my long strides.

"And how would you know?" Vivi asked stopping in the middle of the road.

"Because I can see him right now …." I mumbled through the wood.

"Well come on!" Nami pulled Vivi forward, "No more waiting, we need to go now!"

Vivi stumbled forwards catching up behind us and spared a final glimpse at the firestorm before focusing on running.

Nami blew out hair out of her face with a sigh. "She's a strong girl…"

"If you think about it," I whispered quietly, "She's kind of like you."

"How?"

"Imagine a blue haired you without a lust for money, replace Arlong with Crocodile, and village with kingdom."

"Ah."

"That's the spirit! And don't forget, even when you thought that all hope was lost, Luffy decided to fuck Arlong up right?"

"I suppose so…..." She chuckled out.

"Now help me get the supplies back aboar-HEY! GET BACK HERE AND HELP!"

-0-

"So how many people are in Baroque Works?" Zoro grunted out as he hoisted up the sails.

"I can't say for sure," Vivi muttered. "Supposedly there is 2000 people in it, and towns like whiskey peak are dotted all over the grand line."

"So, there could be a 1000 people after us at a time!?" Nami cried out.

"It's possible, seeing how serious the secret is…."

Nami ground her hand into her face. "Just get out of the river and head into the ocean. The fog is lifting and at this rate, the breeze will be able to carry us forward."

"AYE, AYE NAMI!" / "AT ONCE NAMI-SWAN!"

"Just make sure to not crash your ship into the shore, there are a lot of jaded rocks there. And congratulations on your escape."

"Why congratulate us Nami?" I pointed out as I helped Usopp pull up the foresails, "And how do you know tha-"

Thaaaatt wasn't Nami.

Nico- motherfucking- Robin. Survivor of Ohara, Last living heir of Ohara, valued at a hefty 80 million beri, and sitting behind us. Ready to kill us all (But Luffy) with a simple neck snap and none of us would have been able to stop her.

Aw shitsticks.

HELLO AGAIN.

Sorry for the delay, and I bring bad news only.

"Dodges rotten apple"

Alrighty then. Once again, sorry for the delay, but Life (The little shit that it is) decided to place its foot right up my poor ***** . Oh hey! I got censored. That's new. Anyways, I wanted to say that with this update, it is a delay, but from now onward, I have work to do and I am not sure whenever I can update. Therefore a 2 week period-ish should be normal. I am sorry.

Anyways, PLEASE RATE AND REVIEW ONCE AGAIN. Reviews are like the lifeline for authors like me. They trully do remind us that real life people do read our stories, and they bring us joy. If you just have a spare moment, please review. Thank you.

And as usual, ;3 That's still a butt.

:3

:3

:3

;3


	10. Chapter 10

It was a normal day for the straw-hat pirates. The island on the other hand, ….

The sun was shining, pterodactyls tweeting and the mossy exterior of the million-year-old trees were casting off a greenish pollen that made us all cough when inhaled.

And breakfast was as usual.

Luffy stealing everything, Zoro and Sanji fighting, Usopp trying to get Luffy to belch flames of the dead and the girls standing to the side watching the disorder. And of course, I was OUTSIDE the lounge drinking some tea, trying to drag the remainders of sleep I had after taking the night shift, away from me. With the amount of force that Sanji and Zoro were placing in their kicks or respective punches, I was completely sure that I was in an anime. Wind was flying from the sheer shockwave of their hits. The original crew must have had plot armor or anime armor (Where you can fly 200 mph into a brick wall and just crash through it) whereas I was still (relatively) human. I wasn't sure if anime armor was given to everyone that was in this world, and I sure as hell wasn't willing to test that with the unholy ritual that others called a meal.

Alex is a smart and cautious kid.

Be less like Alex.

Noting that it was a calm day as the din only reached a mild roar, rather than the usual thunder, I relaxed my posture slightly, letting the breeze ruffle my hair. Sipping on tea, I let the fragments of green tea hit my senses. Light and fresh, yet still tangible even with the wind blowing the smell away from me. This was truly a calm day, but I was still sweating from my clothing. I was clad in a dark green hoodie and dark jeans, imitating the look of a make-do terrorist. I had made sure that I had as little area of skin showing, in fear of insects transmitting their diseases. Even if the crew didn't contract illnesses, I wasn't going to leave my health to chance. Huh. Must have been another plot armor thing.

I was planning for the day ahead. The island would have the giants Broggy and Dorry, who I didn't have to worry much about. They were nice and only had quarrels with each other. But the problem was the agents. Mr. 3 who had the wax-wax Devil Fruit with him, was the main antagonist and had nearly killed Vivi, Nami and Zoro. On the other hand, Ms Goldenweek had some type of hypnosis, but was still a child, so she could have been easily taken care of, and Mr. 5 alongside Ms. Valentines was easily disarmed by the monster trio at first, so that was simple as well. The only other small (heh) problem left, were the dinosaurs.

"GARRROUUUGGHHHHH!"

Ah yeah, I forgot about that. Did I mention there were dinosaurs?

Taking this opportunity as the roar had startled everyone inside, I picked myself off the ground and dusted off my pants. Time to start the day. Reaching for the doorknob, I paused and slowly retracted my hand.

My subconscious asked, 'WHO DOESN'T LIKE A GRAND ENTRANCE?'

I absolutely agreed with it. So, I kicked the door open.

BAM!

"LISTEN UP EVERYBODY!"

Everyone turned to me, halting their meal/fight.

"As we approach the next island, take precaution when walking through."

It was silent for a moment.

Silence.

Just pure undiluted silenc-

"And we should listen to you because ….?" Zoro muttered out, still trying to pry some bread from Luffy's grasp.

"If you all recall, our dear informant than had nearly tried to kill me a few weeks prior, said that this path back to Alabasta was known by all the agents." I looked at them solemnly, making sure I wasn't going to say too much. "Ergo, that must mean that there should be agent duo either on, or near this island." I turned to Vivi who was starting to look worried. "Vivi, we have met the Mr. 5 pair, which means that we should encounter someone above them. What do you know about the rest?"

She nervously glanced at us. "Well, Igaram and I were only really trying to find Mr. 0's identity, so we don't know much about the others." She flinched at the faces we were giving her.

"Never mind then …. But back to the point, whoever travels into that jungle," I pointed to the window, "-make sure you go with someone to avoid getting ambushed, just in case there are agents there. Also, seeing as you all had heard the roar just now-"

"GARRRRROOOOAAAAHHHHH!"

A roar punctuated the air, as if on cue.

"-I highly doubt that those are the normal type of jungle creatures that we would be traversing with." Clasping my hands together, with a leer on my face, "Now buckle up kiddys, there's gonna be some adventure!"

"WOOO! ADVENTURE!"

"I think I got I-can't-go-on-that-island-itis…"

"We're doomed with these idiots….."

"WHY ARE YOU ALL SO CALM?!"

I turned to Vivi, confusion written on my face. "We don't do panic. Well, maybe Nami and Usopp do, but the majority of us had the option of-" I quoted. "-'running away FROM danger' taken away. Normally Luffy brings the danger to us."

"Aren't any of you afraid of death?"

"If you guys do go out there, could you kill a few things too? I think we're running low on supplies." Sanji pondered, looking at the jungle with a blood lusted grin. "I wonder if we can eat monsters…."

I pointed behind me.

"Well, Nami is currently strangling Luffy over there-"

"GRK! GAK!"

"STOP GOING ALONE INTO JUNGLES WITH MONSTERS IN THEM YOU IDIOT!"

"-And Zoro is trying to kill Sanji again. And vice-versa."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY MOSS FOR BRAINS?!"

"SHIT COOK I JUST FUCKING SAID, I CAN KILL SOMETHING THAT'S LARGER THAN WHAT YOU WILL EVER BE ABLE TO!"

"SAY THAT AGAIN AND I'LL MAKE SURE YOU WON'T SEE THE SUN TOMMORROW!"

"Usopp's playing with Carue"

"QUACK!"

"HOLD STILL SO I CAN HELP YOU!"

She stared at them all.

"And then there's me, who's smart enough not to get in a fight with either pair, and I try to meditate. Wholly ignoring the fights behind me."

I sat down and poured more tea into another small porcelain cup, sprinkling in some spice. I let the aroma waver through the room, and offered it to her with a small smile.

"Would you like some tea? I find it calming after a shock." Pondering about what I had just said, I took back the cup. "Ignore that, I only find alcohol calming after losing your sanity. I lost mine after joining them."

Walking to the beer rack, I took a bottle and threw it across the room. "Here you go."

She could only drag her face down with her hands, groaning.

Taking a sip,

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it."

-0-

"I SMELL ADVENTURE!"

"We'll be back soon everyone!"

And with that, Vivi, Carue and Luffy were off, traversing into the dangerous jungle, absolutely unprepared for what was to come. I tried, right?

Watching the trio enter the mass of green, I started packing my bag, absentmindedly taking my medical supplies. Never hurt to be too careful, right? Now how did this arc go?

Nami and Usopp were taken by Brogy, or was it Dorry? Meh, either way they would get pulled into the fight no matter what I did, so I'll leave them be. Then Zoro and Nami get trapped by Mr.3 and then get placed on the death candle. I couldn't do jack shit against Mr.3, so I'll also leave them be. Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine would arrive some time later, capture Vivi and give her to Mr.3 but be saved by Luffy, Carue and Usopp.

So where did Sanji fit into this?

The log pose.

Oh yeah, he accidentally found the Mr.3 duo and took the Alabasta eternal log pose. That was the priority now. Without it, Vivi wouldn't be able to return home and we would probably all die due to the viruses here. The monster trio couldn't fight a microscopic disease, and Nami would have died without medical attention.

Speaking of which, I winced at the fact I was prospecting the choice in the original series, letting Nami suffer through that hellish ordeal. But we also needed Chopper, and to save Drum kingdom. And because of my actions with Dragon, Sabo was going to be there as well!

One for the many, right? Hell, she wouldn't even die!

"…."

Wow. That felt psychopathic.

But first things first. I needed to find a certain candle house.

"Seeya!"

"WAIT!" Shrieked Nami, "Now that Vivi and Luffy is gone, what's on this island?"

I turned to her, making sure I had my best shit-eating grin on my face, chuckling darkly. "That's against Luffy's orders, so all I can say is this." I pointed towards the jungle. "prepare yourselves, this island is going to get bumpy."

She sighed at my antics. "Well, at least it won't be that bad-" She turned to me. "-right?"

I smiled like I had never smiled before. "When I said bumpy, I meant by Luffy's standards."

She went rigid as she processed my words.

FWIP!

With a flourish of my bo, I vaulted over the railing and landed onto the shoreline, stumbling a bit at first, but quickly brushing it off.

"SEEYA! HEY SANJI! WAIT UP!"

"GET BACK YOU MANIAC!"

I decided to pointedly ignore the crying behind me.

-0-

WAP!

"So, tell me again why you're following me?" Muttered Sanji as he kicked another small dinosaur away.

THWACK!

Ducking underneath the black furry projectile, I turned to him. "I told you, I can't tell you, but you'll understand when we get there."

Rolling his eyes, he picked up the small bird(?) I looked at it curiously. I was never a dinosaur person, but I knew the basics.

"The hell is this thing …" He wondered, prodding the dead dinosaur.

At first glance, it would have seemed that it was a black bird, but instead of talons, it had hind legs, adorned with wings. It had a long tail trailing behind it, which could have been mistaken as a monkey's tail, except for the feathers on the end of it. The bird was the length of my arm, and seemed like a bizarre and mutated version of a normal pigeon, proving my suspicions of this universe. This was a dinosaur, probably a prehistoric version of the modern-day pigeon.

'Which could not have possibly flown' I thought as I poked its hind legs. With the extra weight, it would have been difficult to do so.

"I'm pretty sure that's a dinosaur Sanji." I answered, observing at my surroundings.

If I took some leaf samples with me, could I have sold them back on earth for money? Scientists would probably love some and paid a hefty amount of money, but there would be too many questions asked. Grumbling as I broke through some vines, I followed the trail of the steadily-growing-larger bodies as I kept traversing along the makeshift path. As I strolled through the jungle, I let the scenery engulf me.

The jungle in which I was originally placed on was a bit dense, but the trees didn't block out all the sunlight. There was room for flowers to grow, and I would occasionally stumble upon a colorful grove of flowers, or some type of fruit or berry. The wildlife was relatively calm, consisting mainly of omnivores rather than carnivores, and the few there were tended to keep to the shadows, ignoring me and tending to themselves. This time, the jungle around me was nothing but a dense pack of leaves that took up almost all light sources, leaving meager amounts of light filtering through.

The bugs had extra limbs and were much larger than usual, scattering back into the bushes as we came close. And the plant life was weird, to say the least. Instead of flamboyant colors, the different species seemed all be only in a dark murky green, and they were all moving to some sort of invisible rhythm or beat, almost hypnotically. I cautiously stroked what seemed to be a touch-me-not plant, but to my surprise, instead of recoiling away, it seemed to extend itself a bit, grasping at the air….

Then slamming shut.

FIP!

Gawd damn. Even from half a meter away, I felt the breeze of the leaves snapping together, which must have been lethal to bugs and small predators. Needless to say, this jungle was clearly nature formed, and mother nature was terrifying. Another thing I noted, was that the trees all had the same dark mossy green color. This coupled with the lack of light created the effect of being on a place untouched by man, lost to all traces of humanity.

"CALIBER SHOT!"

THUNK!

Oh, that poor dinosaur. At least it was quick.

It felt almost alien, but it could have just been my city senses popping up again. A thing that comic books didn't show you, while you were reading in your air-conditioned room, was that the humidity was overwhelming. The constant itch of your skin as your body thought it was being attacked by insects was only enhanced by the infrequent breezes, and I had to check every time just in case a bug was biting me. Who knows what diseases that they carried? My shirt was damp with sweat already, and I was glad for my combat boots, as they repelled all water.

I sighed as I kept walking, heaving myself up on a dead dinosaur. The dinosaur was twice the size of me, lengthways, but I my height was almost equal to that of. It had brownish grey skin, but a white under belly, that felt rough and rubbery under my touch. At a passing glance, it would have seemed like a small tyrannosaurus rex, but when up close, you could see the differences. The arms were still much larger than a t-rex's and it had no teeth. It must have been an omnivore. Maybe a distant relative of the ostrich? Its beak was sharp, attached to its small head, its neck was almost half the size of its torso. But a thing I wondered as I stroked its neck, was how the hell did Sanji even kill that thing?!

I mean of course, he broke its neck, but how could he have possibly generated that much force to break its neck without piercing the skin? Was it just anime physics again or was he able to control his strength to an uncanny degree where he could potentially use as much force that was needed to finish a single task, yet still able to keep some in reserve? Or was it anime for kids, censoring the part where he would have kicked it to oblivion, breaking the neck completely and leaving a massive gaping wound open? Either way this simple task of killing a dinosaur showed how adept he was at his power. I used brawling as my go-to, but all I did was hit them as hard and as fast as I could. No was skill needed for that and my Devil Fruit was only used as a defensive tactic to make my skin like steel, but without more training my punches wouldn't do much. Even with hardened skin. I really did need to train more with Sanji.

Speaking of which, where was he?

'….'

"H-Hello?"

Looking around, I saw that the trail of bodies had disappeared with nothing but trees towering around me. Unless you included the occasional buzz of insects and the blood stains from where I came from. Logs that had fallen to the elements were littered around me and I found myself to be in a small clearing where the sun was shining down upon me. Dead roots were entangled with each other at the base of the trees with bugs crawling over the upturned dirt, which so happened to be in a near-perfect circle around me. Still stood upon the dead dinosaur I realized what this was.

…

…

…

…

A pterodactyl flew above the dense greenery. "CAW! CAW! CAW!"

'….'

Shit.

My eye twitched.

"FUCKING ANIME LOGIC!"

I slapped my hands on my mouth, aghast at how loud my voice was.

Whacking my head, "Stupid, Stupid!" The agents were on this island! Not to mention dinosaurs! I probably alerted the whole fucking island!

I needed to get the hell out of here before something or someone decided to fuck me over!

Unlocking my bo, I chose a random direction and sped back towards the jungle, looking for higher ground. I kept running in a single direction, scattering the leaves and wildlife as I raced across the mossy ground. Breaking branches as I raced across the wilderness, I was pretty sure I cut myself a few times but I was too caught up in panicking to care. If I was caught by either party, human or dinosaur, I was dead. Human meant broken bones or turned into wax, while dinosaurs meant getting eaten. I was eager to try new things but not suicidal enough to try either experience.

The morbid thoughts kept me on the task at hand and I piled on the speed. Breaking through another misshapen log, I started reinforcing myself, preparing to fight. My lungs were already burning with fatigue, and the atmosphere of the jungle wasn't helping. I knew I would soon have to slow down but I needed to get as much distance from where the clearing was, to …. uh…. ANYWHERE ELSE. Thankfully it wasn't long until I heard the tell-tale sound of splashing liquid and that was when I knew I had to be close to the shoreline. I could recollect my directions there, follow the river and find the Merry.

Jumping onto an upturned stone, I kicked off and flew over a smaller unrooted tree. Rolling backwards I knelt on the ground wiping away the sweat on my forehead, trying to catch my breath. I paused and strained my ears, on the lookout for some rumbling of a stray dinosaur, or the footsteps of humans trying to look for some easy prey.

.

.

.

'CA-CAW MOTHERFUCKERS'

Other than the occasional prehistoric bird flying, nothing.

"Fuck mmeee…"

I moaned in relief and laid my head on the rough bark, panting softly as I tried to recollect my thoughts.

Well, that was dramatic. Also, what was the point of that again?

Yeah? Well, fuck you too. And to run from potential threats.

So basically, to further the plot.

Hush you.

"Fucking love-cook. I bet he did it on purpose…." I grumbled out clearing my bangs out of my eyes. Spinning a card in my hand, I looked at my surroundings. Trees surrounded me, and-

"Garoughh?"

I froze as the upturned tree shifted underneath my back. Sweat cascaded down my back like a waterfall, I slowly turned to the piece of (What I thought was) dead bark. What had seemed to be an innocent log on the overgrown ground had turned to be the scaly, dark brown, blood drenched rear leg of what seemed to be a dying dinosaur.

So, are they one of the ones that try to eat you, or is it a vegan? Also, Blood.

"SHIT!"

Noticing the half-dried blood spurting from his form, I leapt backwards, slamming into a tree.

"Garough…"

"holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit." fervently whispering, teeth chattering, eyes widening at the sight.

FWIP!

My cards had started to defensively encircle around my waist, twirling in sync, ready to strike at anything. Clutching my bo in a death-grip, I leaned in closer peering at the suffering animal.

"Garoughh."

With the 3 horns on its scaly head, a duo on the forehead and one on its hind nose, it was easily identifiable. As the triceratops had turned its head towards me, it unrooted leaves and dirt with its frill on the back of it skull and looked at me with curiosity for a moment. It's seemed to be crying from the wound and its moan was slowly diminishing in volume. It wavered its gaze on me for a few scant seconds, before losing interest and slowly turned away and looked back at its legs, where it seemed to have been pierced by sharp objects covered by its blood.

Why the hell was a dinosaur just lying on the ground covered with (I hope) was its own blood, away from its pack or den? Wasn't a triceratops an omnivore? Why would it come so near to the water's edge without a stable food source? And if it had been wounded by a carnivore, wouldn't it have been eaten by now? I knew for a fact that food was always a fickle thing around dinosaurs, so why would a big predator willingly leave its prey, completely defenseless and ready for consumption, alone?

Because something else was bigger than it?

The triceratops was now trying to prop itself on its non-injured knees, to lie on a tree but failing abruptly. It had gotten halfway up the bark, scales scraping against the wood. The tree started tilting dangerously, creaking ominously as the sudden mass was placed upon it. The triceratops stood up straight, showing its true height, towering over my form. It took an unsteady step forwards, before placing a tad bit too much pressure onto its hind leg and blood spurted, spewing blood. It cried out, and the mighty beast succumbed to its wounds.

"GAROOUUGHHHH!"

I winced as the blood started flowing freely, washing over the ground, the smell of the coppery liquid overwhelming. The dinosaur was truly down now. Its legs had some dried blood on them, acting as a bandage and stopping blood from spilling out, but as it scraped across the ground it had been ripped off. If the blood before wasn't enough to cause predators to come check the smell, its roar of pain certainly was. I peeled myself off the tree that I had been gripping onto and started trotting in the blood, cautiously checking the fallen giant.

Unlike the carcass that I had touched earlier, the dinosaur still had life within. I slowly stroked its back, noting how much it felt like rough bark, with smooth coiling muscles beneath the skin. Surprisingly, it was warm blooded, disproving theories of modern science. You would have thought that a dinosaur was a reptile, right?

"garoughhh…"

Flinching at the sound, I used my bo to push off any remains of dried blood, trying to find the wound. I knew that it was most likely that another predator had wounded it, but that still didn't explain why it left. Even if a predator heard me coming, why would it leave its meal?

Wiping off sweat of my head, I peered into the gaping wound and promptly fell back. What had seemed like skin and muscle sinew covered in blood, turned into what used to be a trio of white stakes, driven into the hind legs of the dinosaur. The blood of the dinosaur must have degraded the stakes, and I gingerly touched them and noted how they were all placed in a single vertical line upwards, proving myself right. A certain assassin had passed by here and the dinosaurs that were in his way must have been obliterated.

But why?

A triceratops was an omnivore so what was the point of Mr. 3 harming one? The horns were only there to protect itself from carnivores, so they were relatively peaceful creatures. It had treated me with some curiosity, but had left me alone to my own instruments, more focused on itself. Did Mr. 3 provoke it? And if so, why would he? Why would an assassin go out of his way to kill a passive animal? Was he here to get some meat?

…

Wow. I've been spending too much time with Luffy.

Or was he just a psychopath, who enjoyed the pain of others, preying on things weaker than him?

I sighed as the depressive thoughts re-appeared.

Once again, the light veil of the One Piece universe was lifted off for a brief moment as reality set in once more. Death was real here, not just some fairy type shit with each death being displayed to the viewing audience was used to invoke emotions or some lesson about life. Some people died without much purpose, stumbling in the harsh game that we call life. Oda made each death tasteful but when placed into the universe he drew, you can see he never was too gory, showing what would have really happened if this had been real.

In the comic, the crew had easily dispatched the two pairs of assassins, but how many before them had been tortured and been turned into wax statues? I shuddered as my thoughts became even more morbid. The victims weren't turned into statues, but been encased IN the steel wax, trapped in darkness, unable to move ever again, unable to feel anything until they died of hunger or from lack of oxygen, whichever came first. Death for them would be a gift to release them from an unending limbo.

Mr. 3 was the dictionary definition of a psychopath.

With Luffy and his crew taking out the Mr. 5 pair easily, I couldn't help but think about how the others killed their victims. At least Robin killed with a quick neck snap but how did others kill? Crocodile literally turned them into dust, while Mr. 2 used martial arts to snap bones. Neither were merciful, but at least they wouldn't suffer for long, and Crocodile, even with all his flaws, wouldn't kill without reason, albeit it being a shitty reason. I had long forgotten about the 1 and 4 pairs, but I knew for a fact that the 5 pair enjoyed taking their time.

They enjoyed the bloodshed and watching their victims writhe and squirm in pain. Valentine would torture them by increasing her weight while sitting upon them, cartilage slowly cracking, as pound after pound of flesh turned bones into dust. Mr. 5 would blow parts of their bodies bit by bit, even going as far to tone down the flames of his explosives to cause burns and blisters. Would it really be that bad to kill them? Were they even in the comic after leaving the island? Who would even know about them-

Stop.

KA-BOOOM!

A volcano exploded nearby and without further ado, so did the sounds of combat. How did no one realize those were sounds of combat, instead of dinosaurs? Was it just the plot?

"Garough…."

I blinked and realized that I had been slowly stroking the head of the triceratops, while in the midst of my thoughts. Snatching my hand back, I noticed that the dinosaur was slowly breathing, each breath diminishing in volume. It's dark opaque eyes stared at me as I held my arm, gradually blinking more and more sluggishly, almost like it was embracing sleep yet still fully aware of what was to come.

Death was a natural part of life in a prehistoric jungle with each predator and prey playing a role in the ecosystem. This triceratops was an adult, and death was no stranger to the memories of allied herbivorous being hunted by carnivores, even sometimes fighting back and killing them.

Looks like dinosaurs die with more dignity that humans.

I stroked his head slowly and it looked at me once more with its final spark of life. The dinosaur seemed to sigh slowly in content, and with that final breath, its eyes rolled backwards, the light within them dimmed and the dinosaur moved no more.

I sighed and placed my head upon the tree, still stroking, and sending a silent prayer for the fallen animal. Nothing should die by anything who didn't care. Life was a fragile thing and should not have been played with. Everything had a purpose in life, whether it be a shitty purpose or not, they still had to exist for something.

I sighed again and made to stand up...

...Only to find the root of my fingers had been stuck to the hide.

My fingers had become numb and to my growing horror, where the tips of my finger had stroked the dinosaur head, had sunken into the skull. They were the starting points of what seemed to be the dinosaur's entire nervous system, glowing a violent red as the lines slowly spread across it's body. Masses of lines focused around the head of the animal, and were evenly spread out from head to toe. Coiling with each other, the lines slowly dissolved into a single system of glowing fire.

I could only watch in morbid curiosity.

As the lines started to connect with each other, the points of contact turned a ashy grey and slowly creeped back up the system of spiderwebs, intertwined with each other now. As the system slowly dulled its colours back into the hide of the animal, the lowermost part of the dinosaurs tail suddenly turned into grey dust.

My eyes widened.

As the system began turning back into a dull red, the lines started recoiling and coiling at a faster rate, slowly eating away at the tail. Feeling returned back into my fingertips, and wherever the grey receded from the "shoreline" of the dust, were fragments of its hide breaking off quickly turning into flakes of grey sand before they hit the ground. Now the tail was completely gone, and the hindquarters were slowly falling victim to wha-whatever I was doing.

"Getoffgetoffgetoff!"

Yanking on my hand, I saw that the system of lines had crawled back into my hand, stopping at where my wrist. Instead of the usual red veins, they were grey, much like the dinosaurs epidermis, and I knew what would happen.

"GET OFF OF ME!"

I continuously whacked my bo onto the skull of the animal, trying to gain some form of ground. Muscles straining, the muscles in my arm firing at full throttle to remove my connection. The dust reached its mid section, dissolving the organs as well, leaking blood everywhere onto the ground as the bones clattered against each other, splashing blood everywhere

"SHITSHITSHIT!"

The coppery smell of blood was intoxicating and I was starting to feel panic stricken now. I could feel the tendons and ligaments in my forearm stretching to their limit, and as I started kicking the skull I sent reinforcement into my legs and arms. As I kept walloping the skull, I found that my hand wouldn't reinforce itself, going as far as my wrist. It was at the upper part of its torso now.

"FUCKING GET OFF!"

Blood splattered onto the overgrown ground. I was hysterical now. Abandoning my bo, I placed my feet onto the fin of it's neck and pushed off.

Need help? I don't know about you, but I'd like BOTH my hands. Oh, wait. I DO know you! SO LET ME HELP YOU PRIC-!

"FUCK OFF-"

CRACK!

As I kept applying pressure, the fin broke apart, shards of bone flying. I fell backwards, and I laid on the ground panting in exertion, as the dust kept advancing. It was at the uppermost part of the spine now. Blood pooled around me, drenching my clothes as the smell started to disorientate me, making me drunk on the fumes. That was a lot of blood.

This is what you get when you don't let me help. You die. Now we both die, and it's your fault. You happy now?

The fin started crumbling down, mixing into the blood soaked ground. I blinked back tears and closed my eyes. I hoped it would be painless.

Fwish!

.

.

.

What?

Peeking an eye open, I saw the remains of the skull dissipate into the wind, and red, wispy ethereal chains floating where the head previously was, hovering in the air. The lines intertwined in the air, as if a intricate dance was being performed.

"What the…."

I waved my hand through the lines, and they recoiled at contact. Once more did the lines sway, before breaking apart and pooling into my fingertips. As the last tendril of the incoperal filament flew into my digit, my veins turned red, and I blanched and fell backwards, drenching myself in blood again.

SPLASH!

It felt as if I had drunken an entire case of redbull in one sitting and the energy from 6 cans had been concentrated into a single glass. But I wasn't focused on that. I was more focused on what the hell I had just done.

I had turned an entire being into dust. Not metaphorically but literally. I had LITERALLY turned something bigger than me, which was JUST ALIVE, into DUST AND ASH.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Holding my hands in front of me, I saw I was shaking in trepidation. It might have been the adrenaline racing through my veins, the exhilarant smell of the blood, o-or the realization I had the power to kill with a simple touch. Would I have to wear gloves for the rest of my life now? I couldn't harm anyone like this!

I shook my head and slowed my breath down, letting the scene wash over me. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and envisioned a plain of grass that stretched over the horiz-

But this smell is wonderful~

I ran.

I kept running.

There was no logic in that.

I kept running from that smell of blood, mixed with the stale air of the jungle. I didn't care where I went, as long as the stench of blood couldn't follow me. The jungle dissolved into a blur of green and brown, but I still kept running. Nothing else mattered more now, but the desire to place myself as far away from the odor of the jungle mingled with the coppery smell of blood.

I wasn't hemophobic, but I had a feeling if I had stayed there, something horrendous would have happened. Standing in the blood felt…. wrong, as if I had entered another person's territory and my subconscious screamed at me to get away. Being covered in blood was bad enough, but combined with the amount of blood staining the ground was going to bring back memories. Bad memories.

I stumbled into another clearing, legs slowly losing momentum as I pulled up, panting from the run. As soon as I had regained normal footing, I shoved my hands into the dirt, and started tearing it up. Why did that happen? How did I turn that being into dust?

I looked towards the sky, devoid of clouds, the sun staring right back at me. I unrooted my hands from the soil and grasped at my chest, confirming my belongings. I fumbled with the silver locket's hinge, creaking slightly as the rust was scraped off. My gaze lingered on it's contents for a meager second, before slamming it shut.

This wasn't earth. This was a completely new universe.

The past had no hold over me now. It was just a single bad day. Bad days happened to everyone. This wasn't any different.

I stood up and stared at my hands, flexing them slowly as they remained colourless, where the grey veins had once been. I sighed as I placed my hands back in my pockets. I would put off that problem until I got off this island, and we were well underway in travelling to Alabasta. For now though? I would have to find a certain wax house. The revolution was more important than some remnant of the past.

I stood back up and turned back towards the trail that I had smashed through as I had panicked, leaving a path of havoc. Mr. 3 was a psychopath, but the only reason why a triceratops would have been injured within his wake was because he was going towards somewhere. That somewhere was most likely his house, which meant I had to go through all that again. It was a shitty theory, but that was the only path I had.

Unlocking my bo, I headed back in.

But whacking through another undergrowth, I found that I hadn't ran far, and it wasn't long before I had met with the unholy sight of blood once anew. The jungle creatures didn't have seemed to have touched the blood, but insects had started to crowd around the cerise liquid, stumbling at the sides.

I carried on through the scene, determined not to stare at it.

If a dinosaur had been close to his hideout, then the duo must have had dinosaurs littered around the exterior, meaning that the more dead dinosaurs I found, meant the more likely I was closer to my goal.

The path to the salvation of Alabasta is through death…

Shut up.

Make me.

The trees acted as guardians to the forest, each large and unyielding from the elements and the constant combat, yet still seemed ancient, each a skyscraper from the glades. Through a small opening through a bush, I found a well worn path, leaves scattered around it, as the naked earth stood freshly unturned.

I went down the distressed path, confident that I would find either sanji, or the house.

.

.

.

But that plan went to shit, as soon enough, I had found the bodies of dinosaurs, each adorned with entangled limbs with wax protruding through their extremities. As I continued along the path each carcass seemed to be more and more grotesque.

A simple spear through a gut turned into an intricate piece of wax haphazardly swirling around the head of another, it was clear I was nearing the little wax house of horrors. I reinforced my torso, making sure that I had the light sheet of armour around me. It wouldn't do much against a direct strike, but at least an indirect hit would probably glance off, giving me time to counter. If I made contact, I could quickly disable his powers, giving me a much larger advantage than him.

But that was the only chance I had. The main goal of this was to obtain the log pose and get out before anyone noticed, so combat was a strict no-no this time.

Awwww...

As I stepped over yet another body, I turned around to check my surroundings. I was in a much bigger clearing with several paths, each leading to different parts of the forest. None of them looked particularly inviting.

The clearing that I was in was filled with the "art pieces", each inscribed with a different memo. I peered inquisitively at a raptor with a colourful red plumage of its feathers, each lined with a single barb at the end. Through its gut was a spear covered in blood. The simplicity of the kill ended there. The ends of the spear had multiple lines entangled through the air, each blossoming into another lily as the points touched, surrounding the bird within its prison. It closely resembled a fucked up ball cut open in two. But within the lillie's anthers and styles, there was a sentence carved into the wax.

'Death should never be quick, it should be a opera~'

'You shall become art~'

'Each death must be choreographed, each a piece of a set~'

Well then. This was certainly a psychopath.

Fucking Jhin mains…

Turning back to the paths, I stepped over a ston-

FWIP! SHICK!

"FUCK!"

The ground imploded, scattering leaves everywhere. The scenery changed instantly, sky turning into ground and ground into sky. As I ascended, or descended, into the sky, I dropped my bo as my sense of gravity was lifted from beneath me, and placed me upside down.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Hollering out obscenities through the air, and as wind shifted, the rope tightened on my legs, leaving me strung up like a fish, still screaming.

"THE FUCK IS THIS?!"

Spinning on a pivot, I could feel the blood rushing towards my head as I laid helpless to the world. As the novelty wore off, I looked back at my legs, the rope kept tightening whilst blocking the flow of blood to my legs. Not that there was much flow anyways.

Cursing at my breath at my stupidity- the forest must have been headquarters for the assassin duo for months! Why the hell wouldn't they put down several traps! The whole place must have been Mr.3's backyard for 'art', which clearly meant he must have visited here regularly!

"Oh fuck me …" I ground out, still spinning in the air.

KA-BOOOM!

I turned towards the sound, staring at where the volcano stood. This was when they were captured, slowly turning into wax. I sighed again as I realized that the crew was in danger, and I hadn't even seen the smallest speck of white stone.

Oh fuck the plan, I needed to help them.

And how do you plan to do that?

"FUCK OFF!"

As I said moments prior, make me.

"YOU DON'T E-"

"You know, people say speaking to yourself is the first sign of madness."

I froze at the voice of a child, accompanied with the crinkling of wrapper paper. Crunching on a cracker, tone bland and uncaring to the point of boredom, I was sure this was Goldenweek.

I kept staring at the mossy bark, back still faced towards her.

You know she can hit you right? Her entire job is to ensnare people and let Mr.3 kill them, sooooo….

NOT HELPING. FUCKING HELP M-

"Hey! Stop moving! Sadness blue!"

FWIP!

Through my struggling, I had caught a glimpse of the paint hurtling through the air.

Hypnosis was as powerful as the victim let it be. The weaker the will, the easier it would be. The stability of the mind also helped the victim, and so did knowledge of what the hypnosis consisted of, such as how the particular hypnosis worked. She used colours to invoke emotion or feelings within the target, and capitalized on that to keep them in place until help arrived. Blue stood for aloofness or sadness, or could be used for lack of emotion.

I thought this knowledge would be enough to stop the initial reaction.

As the paint hit me, the shock faded away, and for a brief moment I thought it wouldn't affect me.

I thought wrong.

Like a hurricane hitting a shoreline, emotions erupted from within me.

I was useless. I had no place in this world. I was just a kid- barely a adult- who was playing hero in an entirely new universe. I was nothing but a nuisance to everyone around me, both to friend and foe. The crew would have to pick up after me, while I just created more work for enemies. Nothing I did would have changed anything, and life would continue as it was. The others would carry on without me, leading to great feats in this world, but me? I couldn't protect anyone even if I tried, and my efforts to help would only hurt them. I was just the glorified stowaway, just a parasite leeching upon the crew and basking in their victories.

Which is the difference between you and me. Let me out. Let me hel-

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

I violently thrashed within my confinement, trying to claw upwards to the knot, trying to break free.

"H-Hey you! Stop that!"

"DONT FUCKING TOUCH ME!"

Roaring at her, she stumbled at my outburst, but quickly picking up her brush again and mixing up another colour. Yellow and Blue.

Malachite.

Pine.

Jade.

Or more simply,

Green.

My eyes widened as I realized her intentions.

Oh no...

Oh yes~

"Uh kid?" I asked hesitantly, praying to whatever entity was up in the sky. Not the one with the god-complex though, right ?

"I don't know you kid-," I took a deep breath, still unsure of what I was about to do.

OI!

"-but I'm warning you, don't use peace green on me."

She froze and turned to me, still swirling her brush.

"How do you know about tranquill green?"

I placed as much hope I could into my voice, praying she would heed my warning.

"You don't need to know that, but please-" I looked into her blue eyes, still full of life.

NOT FOR LONG!

"-don't do it. You don't know what I'm capable of, so I'm warnin-"

I stopped as she chuckled at my statement.

Wait what?

"You are aware you sound like one of those villains from comic books right?"

I looked at her blankly.

"Tranquill green!"

"NO!"

Time slowed down as the paint flew through the air.

Tranquill green radiated peace, serenity and congeniality.

The polar opposite of what was in me. The thing which I had always wished never existed. As I closed my eyes once anew, the darkness took a single form. One that I had hoped- even prayed for, that would have disappeared after so long. The form tilted its head, looking at me with distaste, almost disappointed. It then crouched down and jum

She lowered her brush. Tranquill green should have been enough. She then frowned, chewing on her end of her brush, thinking back on the weird behaviour. Why was he shaking? Green should've calmed him down. She had a bad feeling about this…

"HEEHEH! #$HAHEEHA$%^#HEHAH(*&^$AA!"

What? Why was he laughing? His laugh didn't even seem normal, more and more insanity imbuing the laugh with every shake, wracking his body. It chilled her to the bone, scaring her.

Twisting in mid air, he had abandoned the task to free himself from his confinement. The branch dipped slightly, creaking ominously as he placed his hands on his face, covering it as he kept shaking, continuously cackling at some inside joke.

Taking an unsteady step back, she turned to her colour pallet again.

"One more time… Sadness blue should do the trick-"

FWIP!

"-eep!"

One of his hands flew to the wrist holding her brush, clutching it in a death grip, still shaking as he held her. She stared fearfully at the single eye burning into her own, seemingly staring into her soul, his other hand still covering his right eye.

"Let go of me!" she yelped.

The eye seemed to narrow dangerously, his grip somehow still increasing in power. Tears welling up, rolling down her cheeks, she let go of her pallet and it fell to the floor with a muffled thump. She tried to pry his fingers apart, but they were holding too tightly to her wrist. It hurt and she wanted it to stop! Shaking her arm, she tried with renewed vigor, prying the ironclad fingers from their-

"Ya know-"

She froze at his tone. It was the same voice, but it was condescending, tilting dangerously on the point of total psychotic breakdown and parental sentiment.

A few meager minutes ago, he was terrified of something that was to come, which was weird enough since she was a child. Then he asked-nay, begged her, accompanied with crying for her to not hypnotise him, but now?

Now he had an aura of bloodlust around him, extruding fear and terror all around him. Even the wildlife around them seemed to wilt and decay around him, going as far to droop down as he spoke. The branch holding the rope seemed to gradually darken, as if it was burning, and the threads of the rope binding him upside-down started to fray, leaving a tinge of burnt rope odor lingering in the air.

She turned upwards, slowly reaching his unaltered gaze, noting how the iris had shrunken into a pinprick of red undiluted hatred, seemingly conveying a silent message of longing of what was to come.

The rot ascended midway onto the line, and with a SNAP!

The rope split into twine, and he fell towards the ground. Swinging in midair just so, he landed gracefully, still grasping her wrist, glaring at her.

"It would be nice to thank you for helping me get out,-"

He let his arm covering his face fall to his side, and she gasped, trying to tear herself away from him, to get as far as humanly possible from that boy. Smiling a smile-no that wouldn't describe what was on his face- that thing belonged on a demon, rather than a human, with a glowing red eye on one side of his face, the other shrouded by his hair, he looked as like a monster made from children's dreams. With his back covered with blood, which was slowly dripping off him, he bore no resemblance to the boy who had been caught in the trap. His smile seemed too wide for him, nearly breaking skin as he somehow widened it, turning it outright demented.

"-but it would be SO, SO much more fun beating you to death~"

...

..

.

WUT. NOONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISTIO-UPDATES.

WHAHAHAHHAHAHAahahahaahahahahahahahaha.

Well. Exams are ganking me, and the professors ain't calling mia's. So I will probably update around the holiday season.

As usual, Review please :3 Once again, the fanart of this fic is on my profile.

And to my good friend who likes to fuck with me on a daily basis,

FUCK YOU TOO A-A :). Oh. Her name was censored. Fuck.


	11. Chapter 11

OMAKE NUMBER 1 Part 1 of Halloween

(This omake is set in the grand line, before Vivi joined. I know it doesn't make sense, but please use your, 'Clears throat' "hem, hem." "IMAGINATION")

"This was a terrible idea."

We stared at Zoro incredulously.

On a normal day (Straw hat standard of course), if anyone was to hear the Straw hat's swordsman mouth emit those words, in that order, without him being forced to, Usopp would have won at least a couple thousand beri, seeing how he was the closest to predicting when the green-haired idiot would have actually said those specific words.

But when an entire island's inhabitants have all turned into ghosts of the damned, a floating giant dead woman was hovering over the skies looking for a specific swordsman, and a hole opened up beneath the village (Leading to hell no less, judging by the fire and the screams coming from the hole), it was most certainly NOT a normal day at all. Did I mention the giant demon woman could also shoot laser beams?

KA-BOOM!

I winced at the heat waves radiating from the stack of wood that was there moments ago. Prior to the laser beam of death.

"You mean the gateway to hell, the inhabitants flying around as ghosts, and the sugar hyped up Luffy, WASN'T ENOUGH TO SAY THAT IT WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA, BEFORE THE GHOST WOMAN APPEARED ?!" Nami roared, eyes turning into fiery pits of doom.

On any other day, I would have been terrified shitless, even when I wasn't her main source of anger, but when comparing a mad Nami to the literal pit to hell twenty feet away from us… well….. I'm just saying that that diminishes the effect a lot.

But I was still mad at Zoro, considering how he got us into this particular situation. I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

Take some more deep breaths kiddo, with that blood pressure, you're going give yourself a heart attack.

I took another deep breath, smashing the voice into the back of my skull.

"One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three-"

"I know you're mad, but in all things considered, this isn't really that bad, considering how the sake is just that good~"

Nami and I looked at him with…. something. Something amounting to disbelief. I honestly couldn't even tell what I was feeling myself.

"WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS ?!"

"WHY DO YOU ENJOY RAISING OUR BLOOD PRESSURE LEVEL TO STAGES RESERVED FOR FUCKING SPACE ENGINES TRAVELLING AT MACH 5 ?!"

There's no such thing as a space engine being able to travel at that speed thou- SIX O FUCKING CLOCK! GIANT DEAD WOMAN!

I was suddenly acutely aware of the looming death threat hovering behind us.

"INCOMING!"

KA-BOOM!

"GIVE ME BACK MY OFFERING!"

And with that, we were running again.

-0-

I should really start from the beginning.

-0-

In the beginning, there was nothing. But everything changed when the fire nation attac- big bang occurred. From nothing, the universe imploded in an instance of light and life, and it was magnificent.

With the big bang, life-

NOT THAT FAR YOU IDIOT!

Sorry.

-0-

"-and with a final howl,"

WHY ARE WE STARTING AT THE FINALE- Oh wait, nevermind.

"the mighty werewolf succumbed to its wounds. It stared at the sniper with a sense of gratitude, almost indebtedness. With it's waning strength, he turned towards the horizon, eyes drinking in the sight of dawn breaking through the night. He died with a smile on his face."

Usopp paused for effect, letting the tension flow back into the room.

"But with a gasp, the villagers pointed to the snipers arm!"

Now with a falsetto voice, "Dear sir ! The w-werewolves bite! The death mark is on you now!"

CRASH!

Usopp suddenly jumped on the table, knocking over the porcelain teacups as he took a stance.

"Fear not good villagers! I shall rid myself of this humble town! May we never meet again!"

He looked at us, dropping his persona as he grinned wildly at us. We stared back at him.

Just staring at him.

Pure silence.

Room void of any sound.

Almos-

"That's it? So what's the scary part?"

CRASH!

Usopp fell to his knees, tear tracks down his face, rocking himself on the wooden floor boards.

"T-that wasn't scary at all ?"

Nami scoffed at his reaction.

"Basic plot with a generic storyline, bad grammar, and a character that clearly isn't you."

I hastily turned away, as I had the sudden and unexpected need to cough up blood. Or to make Nami do so for me. Either, or, I wasn't picky.

BAM!

Door slamming on impact, it was a testament of how I was quickly getting used to Luffy's antics so much, I didn't even blink as shrapnel flew towards us.

"NAMI! THERE'S A ISLAND UP AHEAD!"

Nami's response was to immediately turn to the log pose, glaring at her wrist.

"But that's impossible! Are you sure Luffy?"

"Yep! They have pretty lights above them as well! You should see them Nami!" Luffy replied, grinning his infamous smil- wait, did he actually ever stop grinning?

"Yeah, yeah…." Dusting off invisible specks of dust off her knees, she headed out of the gallery.

Luffy made to follow her, but frowned, and turned back towards me, inspecting me.

"Hey Alex? What are you supposed to be?"

Oh yeah. Halloween.

I should also explain that as well…

Apparently, the Strawhat's respective members had a similar type of Halloween to our world, instead of the brutal 'Day of the dead' vibe I thought they would have, due to them having literal "Devil" fruits. Instead, I got the familiar "Little children running around in town with their costumes, asking for sweets". That sort of stuff. Even in another universe, it was nice to see some things never changed.

I still pitied Makino and Dandan.

But of course, since we had no candy, and since Sanji wasn't willing to make some,

"-Luffy would just eat it all!"

he made some pumpkin pie. To make Luffy feel better, we made an apple bobbing station, Usopp and Nami made decorations and Sanji and I were carving faces in pumpkins, while Luffy was messing about. And to top it all off, the strawhat's dressed up with their respective costumes. Hell, Usopp even made giant devil horns for Merry, sticking them where her ram horns were!

But Zoro fell asleep, claiming it was 'boring' and 'childish'.

Me on the other hand….

Well, I was having a Halloween party with fictional characters from a different universe. Who wouldn't get excited?

.

.

.

Dear 11 year old me,

Its me! From the future! It does get better! So stop your brooding and go outside for once.

Sincerely,

Future me.

Anyways, as darkness overtook the sky, the party started. Somehow, Usopp pulled out a suit of traditional Japanese armor, a "Tatami" and was carrying half his weight in metal. Completely red, with chainmail covering the exterior and a fake bamboo sword at his side. The various gauntlets and cuisses were connected to the torso with small orange rectangular armor plates, making it lightweight and comfortable. Sanji had also borrowed some items from Usopp's armor collection, (Seriously where the hell does he hide it?) and was currently wearing a medieval knight's costume, sword and all. With a coat of arms on his shoulder, featuring a lion and a dragon, he looked as if he could fit into the medieval era without hassle. Nami, (To no end of pleasure for Sanji) was wearing a witch's costume. Stereotypical black pointy hat, and a simple low cut black dress with black leggings to complete the look.

Luffy had simply taken a hollowed out pumpkin, and placed it on his head.

I honestly did not expect anything else from them.

And me? Well, due to a wardrobe malfunction (COUGH barely any clothes COUGH), I was wearing a simple costume. If anyone had heard of Jonathan Joestar, then you know what I'm talking about. The name of "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" should already say enough about what I was currently wearing.

"Well Luffy, I am a made-up character from my world."

He just stared at me blankly.

"Well, It started off with a gentlemen, his wife and their baby falling down a mountain, one of whom instantly dies-"

"EVERYONE! GET OUT HERE NOW!"

"SAVED BY THE NAMI! SEEYA ALEX!"

…..

I tilted my head at Luffy's retreating form.

"Stupid anime protagonist's stupidity…"

Taking a final sip from my mug, I headed outside. The first thing I noticed was the light in the sky. Or to be more specific, the lights, as in fireworks.

Colors flew from the stonework houses, haphazardly arranged from the coast continuing further into the island. We were close enough to see the island and some of its structures, but too far to see the habitants. Seemed like a small village, with self-sustaining farms. Probably cut off from the rest of the world.

"What the hell is this island…" Nami muttered, fervently glancing at the log pose. "Not only does the log pose not point there, but there seem to people living there…"

Other than the frantic navigator, the rest of the crew were still in awe from the light show above them.

"It's been too long since I've seen fireworks…" grumbled Sanji, finally taking a break from his constant smoking, embers dying out as he followed a particularly sickly green comet, streaking through the night sky.

"I wonder if I could ask the islanders for their formula…" murmured Usopp, quickly sketching the explosions as they imploded into a million cinders.

"Alex?"

I turned to my name. "Yis?"

"So, uh, in your comic of yours, did they show anything about this island? I mean," She stared at the island ahead, "the only compass which works in this sea isn't working, so is this some phantom island or whatnot?"

I shrugged and pointed to Luffy, still englamoured by the dazzling sparkles. "First question, no. Second question, also no. I wish I had some sort of information, but I never paid much attention to the details of the comics. We're on our own for now."

Grinding her palm against her forehead, I could hear the sounds of the gears turning in her brain.

"I'm going to regret this.." she muttered, turning towards Luffy. "HEY LUFFY! Should we dock at that island?"

-0-

Now as a young adult who had been transferred into an anime universe via a being of immense power opening up a portal in the sky, I would have liked to have said very little could surprise me now.

The constant 'bouts' between the swordsman and the cook had shown me that in an anime universe, all fights must have been accompanied with shockwaves of air pressure from blows. A navigator had shown me that in an anime universe, you could turn your teeth into needlelike structures and your eyes into hollow pits that promised death, or into fiery pits of doom (Dependent on said navigator's mood, and who had pissed said navigator off), if you were mad enough. That was half of the crew, defying laws of logic, physics, gravity and explanation.

I thought my statement would have been true.

"Why hello, who might you younglings be?"

That statement was eaten, digested, and shat out by the person who we had first encountered on the island.

A 'Neko' is the Japanese word for cat. However, it was more commonly referred to a half-cat, half-man; someone who had cat like features such as a tail, or cat ears. Any otaku, pervert, furry or anime fan (Yes I included all the innocent anime lovers in this list) worth their waifu would know what a Neko is, and what they normally represented. Simply put, it was cuteness.

"You guys ok? Why are your jaws unhinged?"

That being said, depictions of Neko's would be people in cute poses.

"Do you need some help?"

Factoring all of that into account, the polar opposite of what a Neko should be, was a very old man with a pair of cat ears and a pink frilly dress at least two sizes too small for him. This in turn also led us to see his, well, let's just go with unmentionables. People say that babies cry immediately when they are born, due to the shock and fear of being alive. That shock and fear was replicated in each and every one of our faces, sans Luffy. Ignorance was bliss. Ranging from crying (Sanji) to cringing so hard, to, as if it looked as if someone had eaten a particularly sour lemon, while being kicked in the balls (Zoro). A better explanation would be the impossibru face. Either way, we left, vowing to never speak of that moment again.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ?!"

"MY EYES ARE BLEEDING!"

"Killll mmmeeeee…"

"BLEACH! I REQUIRE BLEACH FOR CONSUMPTION!"

Well, after a brief moment of screaming obscenities to the full moon.

Welp. So, uh. This is awkward...

The majority of people who read this story may have some thoughts. I believe that they consist mainly of these :

A) Fucks wrong with you.

B) This "Halloween" chapter is late

C) Why haven't you updated in so long?

Or D. All of the above.

I bring bad news. Don't worry, this story won't be discontinued, (nor will it ever be) but I have a few things to saw to the large variety of people who read and enjoy this story. Recently, it has come to my attention that I have been neglecting my duties as a author of this story. I am sorry for this. I don't think I have said this, but I will say it now.

I am a student. I have responsibilities. In fact, Shattermirror and Lavenlemonder are also students and we have recently found out about each other. We have spoken to each other, and we do not have much time to edit and write at a rate that we can keep our grades and you readers satisfied. We do not know when the next update will be, but I will repeat myself when I say this: THIS STORY WILL NOT BE DISCONTINUED.

To all who reviewed this story, (albeit shitty one) I have two things to say.

I would like to repeat what I consistently say in them. Thank you. Each review makes me happy, and unlike how people think otherwise by my actions as a quiet person who has EDGY AS FUCK HAIR, HORRIBLE MUSICAL TASTE and SARCASTIC REMARKS TO EVERYTHING, I do enjoy feeling happy. :) Another thing that I don't think I've said before, is that this is not exactly a self insert fic, but more of a 'OC who has the same traits as me'. I think that's all the important stuff.

As usual, please review if you can spare the time. If you have any questions, feel free to P.M me. Thank you for enjoying our story, and we will see you in the next update.

:3 :3 :3

ITS STILL A FUCKING BUTT. I AM STILL VERY INAPPROPRIATE.

EDIT- TWO HOURS LATER. IMA FUCKING IDIOT. I ALSO HAVE SOME ART OF ALEX. I FORGOT. CHECK MY PROFILE.


	12. Chapter 11

Filthy.

He was covered in blood with various shades of blue and green paint mingling with red to form a black tar-like substance that congealed on his back.

But he paid no attention to that.

Looking rather deranged, he stared at his arm in awe, slowly turning it as he gingerly clenched his fist again, again and again. It was as if he was an alien, trying to understand the mechanics of the body he currently inhabited. It felt almost peaceful, like he was performing an intricate theatrical performance of a being newly brought into a world unlike their own.

But it was only almost peaceful. This was brutally ruined by the child that he held in an iron grip by his other arm that was currently kicking and screaming at him.

A lot.

"LET GO OF ME!"

Very loudly.

Either her screams were too high pitched for him to notice or- more likely than not- because his mentality was presently firmly entrenched in the mindset of simply not giving a fuck.

The rotting trees and quickly blackening forest didn't help the mood either. Had the struggling girl been paying attention to the scenery, she would have noticed how everything was slowly decaying around them. And now-

…

Seriously? Sweet Christ.

Now he was kissing his knees.

"Oh, legs~ Oh how much have I missed you!"

With tongue…?

…

Okay. Fuck this. Visualize this scene by yourself.

WARNING: Disgusting and an unnecessary scene describing how you could have coitus with your own legs.

…

Traumatized yet?

Yes?

No?

Don't care.

She looked at him with disgust, recoiling away as her mind had to witness the spectacle of a guy trying to have coitus with his own legs. Wincing at the scene, she focused her energies into grabbing her back, clenching onto a familiar hilt. As the unholy sounds started to rise in volume, she was thinking how she would have gouged out her own eyes if she could.

However, she needed them now. So she settled with the next best option.

.

.

.

Stabbing him in the arm. With a penknife.

"AUGH!"

That sent him screeching, whipping his hands away as he glared at her. She glared at him defiantly, daring him to try again.

He glared back.

Now that particular glare was more effective, setting off the alarm bells in her head, telling how she had royally fucked up.

"Run."

Shit.

That word filtered through her head as she did just that, weaving over the bodies and the bones that littered throughout the yard. Her only hope was to find Mr. 3, and hope that he would finish him off. As she sprinted through the rough terrain, the sounds of laughing flickered through the air, each vocal note, haunting her to her core. There was nothing natural about that boy.

"RUN FOREST RUN!"

And now he was spouting off lines from some sort of book. In any other situation, she would have permitted herself to laugh, but this only just fuelled her desire to keep running. The line was meant to be a shout of encouragement, but it just filled her with ever-growing dread. As long as she kept runnin-

FWOMPTH!

"GAH!"

Smoke suddenly erupted from her side, blinding her for a scant second as it filled her vision. The chalky fog quickly spread across the moss-ridden ground, and soon filled her vision.

"Damn fruits…" she coughed out.

Taking a deep breath, she took out her pen-knife and held it in a two-handed grip, more suited to killing squirrels than a real threat. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and a blind one was even worse. Eyes darting around, she slowly stepped backward, keeping keen sight of any suspicious movements within the smoke. He was definitely there, keeping an eye on her movements.

"Here we go…"

What?

"NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!"

The very air shimmered through the dimly lit jungle, and a wild hand appeared!

…

Or hovered.

Well, I mean, it literally hovered over the small creek, slowly making its way over to where she stood, behind a tree. She stared at the hand and the trailing rust-blood trail of smoke that it left along it as it painfully crawled through the air.

She blinked, confused at the fist.

The boy stepped from where he hid, back into the light and the smoke flocked towards him, clinging to him. His arm was outstretched towards the girl, and he stared at the hand, still slowly making its way to the child.

He stared at the hand, then to his stump.

Then back at his hand, to his stump again.

She stared at the stump, to his hand again.

Then back to the stump, to his hand again.

"..."

"..."

"So, uh, are you new to this power thing or what?"

He stared at his hand trice more, then turned to the girl, his face turning a deadpanned expression on his face.

"He traded my ability to swim for powers beyond comprehension, and this-"

He gestured to the floating hand, still hovering towards her.

"-this is what I get."

He turned to her, pinching the bridge of his nose with exasperation. "On the off chance that you do live, could you promise to never mention this again?"

She blinked stupidly, opening her mouth and raising a finger to retort, probably going into some convoluted thing about how ironic that was. She then flipped him a bird.

"WHY YO- YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

And with that, the merry (for one of them anyway) chase continued.

Through the jungle once anew, another dynamic duo was running. Cutting through the bushes, the pair hastily flew across the prehistoric rough terrain.

"Ms. Valentine, are you sure you heard him?" Questioned Mr. 5, rocketing off the rock he had perched on, using another explosive foot as he reduced the poor stone into rubble.

"Yeah-" She huffed out, "-And I told you, be quiet! We need to get the jump on him!"

"But let me get this straight, you heard him over the sounds of the giants fighting, my explosions, and you breaking the cartilage of that long nose brat?"

He turned to her bemused, "Are you serious?"

"No! I mean, I heard the child scream!"

"Ms. Goldenweek? What can a no-name pirate do to an assassin of her calibre?"

"SHE'S JUST A STUPID CHILD! All she's got is a title you idio- SHUSH!"

She cut off herself, and crouched down upon the branch she was currently on, glancing at the greenery. She frowned at something, creasing her forehead as she concentrated on something in the distance.

.

.

.

"Nothing…"

She huffed and turned to her companion.

"Send me up. I need visual."

And without further ado, the duo went in a well-practiced stance, one of the first they had performed successfully together.

"FINGER BLUNT BLAST!"

"1 KILOGRAM SHIFT!"

FWOOM!

With nary a sound, the woman was sent flying into the air. Quickly reaching the peak of the jump, she opened up her parasol, surveying the surroundings. This was how the duo gathered intel during missions. Mr. 5 would create a concussion blast at Ms. Valentine's feet, and the sudden change in wind pressure would send her flying upwards into the sky, letting her gain an airborne view. This simple trick was crucial to finding hidden targets during missions.

It was truly a wonder why she still wore dresses.

Spinning in the air, Ms. Valentine saw something. Something dark. Too far to see, but the area stood out from the lush marshlands, like a pimple on a porcelain face.

Muttering under her breath, for her own benefit, "10 Kilogram shift."

She started to fall.

As the sudden change in weight took effect, she closed her parasol, gracefully gliding back onto a branch.

"Northeast forty meters. Somethings wrong."

He nodded, preparing another explosive jump before pausing in thought.

"Wait a moment…" He muttered. "Isn't that where Mr.3 keep his exhibit?"

Ms. Valentine slowly turned her gaze towards him. "You mean the one place he told us not to fuck with? Lest we desire, and I'm quoting here, 'Become a part of his exhibit?"

He calmly nodded in affirmation, before the meaning of her words hit him, cold realization settling in his stomach.

Shit.

With that in mind, he voiced his concerns in a very adult manner. "OH SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT-"

THWACK!

So, his female companion decided to also respond in an adult manner. By adult manner, slapping him upside the head, grabbing him by his coat and shaking him down would have been a prime example of such.

"STOP HYPERVENTILATING, SHUT UP AND START LISTENING TO ME!"

Mr.5 paused his ranting, his attention on the woman in front of him.

"Listen up! If we get that kid, we can pin the blame on him! For now, we forget the child, and we check on the damage. Capiche?"

He nodded slowly, careful not to aggravate the woman again. But of course, he just had to kick the hornets' nest again.

"What if the kid, I mean, sh-GRUK!"

"SHE CAN BURN IN HELL FOR ALL I CARE!"

Hidden through a grotto, she felt quite safe. Unless he stared at the entrance directly, and maybe not even then, he wouldn't have seen her.

But for some strange reason, (Completely unrelated to the conversation a mile away) Goldenweek felt the need to sneeze.

"ATCHOO!"

And so she did.

"HEY! COME BACK! I GOTTA SHOVE A ROD THROUGH YOUR HEAD!"

And with that, she ran.

Legs never ceasing to stop their cycle of motion, her mind never straying from her original thought: Run. Her lungs caught fire and her heart was at its limit. It was a strange sensation, she discovered, is so excruciatingly pained but unable to stop moving. The fear of death was the kindling that fuelled the fire of desire to never stop. She weaved through the trees along with little more than her memory to guide her steps, each breath more painful than the last.

The only thing that stood between certain death and her, was the knowledge of the jungle. There was no way she could outrun him, so she used the jungle as her ally. Each upturned root, each misplaced log, and thorn bush was slowing her pursuer down. Adrenaline could only help so much, and with a final heave of her chest, she tumbled into another well-hidden grotto.

It paid off to have a backup plan.

"WHERE ARE YOU ?!"

Silence.

He had stopped near to where she hid, leaves crunching underneath his weight as he loitered around.

"I know you're here somewhere…" He muttered, and she could hear his teeth grinding in frustration. For a brief moment, all was silent par from the heavy breathing of the boy.

"Let's make this simple."

She froze. With grim realization, each footstep was drawing closer and closer to where she hid. Forcing herself to take only slither of air, she pressed deeper into the dirt and prayed to whatever entity lived in the sky.

"You come out now-"

The footsteps paused, hovering in the entrance of the grotto. She could see her own reflection on his boots. One more step, just one, would be enough to kick her head in.

"-and I don't have to break all your bones."

It irked me.

A voice, unlike my own, inside of me.

It was ... fascinating, to say the least, to view the world from by yet another perspective.

A mock prisoner in my mind, trapped in limbo.

That part was funny.

.

.

The kicking and screaming were not.

One's mind could only take so much abuse.

Mr. 5 voiced the question.

"What the hell happened here…"

And Ms. Valentine wholly agreed with him. For once, the blonde had no retort to speak of.

The 'hell' that he was referring to, was the absolute carnage that engulfed their vision. To describe the view with a single word, the word 'dead' came to mind. Other words could have been 'black', or 'shrivelled husks'. Either way, the pair had no words for the absolute massacre in front of them. But a massacre would have implied there were bodies, something that passed for a formerly living article, or something to be able to piece together to understand what had happened prior to the destruction. This was nothing like a massacre.

Ruinated, eradicated or annihilated would have better words to describe the scene in front of them. This wasn't a battlefield. This was the aftermath.

The land was razed. The once-fertile soil that crawled with insects and creatures, was little more than just thickly layered dust, with some patches of dried blood from some unlucky animals had been haphazardly laid around the area. The razed land stopped neatly at the edge of their feet, and it seemed as if the irritated land curved inwards, forming a neat circle. Misshapen objects along the curvature of the demolished land were clearly cut haphazardly as if a madman had been given a chainsaw and been told to go nuts. Barely anything was recognizable.

As the pair ventured deeper into the ironically well-lit hellscape, the ground seemed to crumble and crackle beneath their weight, dangerously sinking before unsteadily settling. In other parts of the forest, the light was a rare element, as the uppermost branches of the timber goliaths would have been shielded with leaves, all to collect the precious light, leaving the smaller plants to fight root over root for a meagre amount of it. However, this was not the case here. The once mighty trees were nothing but husks of their former bodies. With a tad bit more walking, they arrived at the centre of the, well…., whatever had happened here.

The pair stopped.

A single tree stood in their path.

Even if it could even be called a tree anymore.

For starters, the branches resembled more of human appendages, as they had curled up to look like withered arms, all entangled within each other. The torso of the tree had been burned away, the healthy brown bark had turned into darkened charcoal like it had been burnt down, while the branches had its leaves stripped away. Pieces of flaky wood seemed to fly off with a single touch, or whenever a breeze hit it at just the right angle.

And the worst part?

Even with all that damage, all that decay and destruction, it still seemed to be alive.

The pair could see eerily red substances, pulsating slowly within the cracks of the bark.

The blonde had only one response.

"Is this guy the devil?"

A shout broke through her response.

And without further ado, the pair jumped into the trees above, quickly traversing through the jungle, focusing where the shout originated.

Mr. 3 was a man who was unlikely to ever exert himself over killing a few lowly pirates.

And of course in due anime logic and fashion, said "few lowly pirates" were currently beating the shit out of him.

He used to be cunning, devious and had a contingency plan for everything. Very little could have surprised him when he started out in the assassination business, even at such a young age, and he took that in pride.

However, after he had eaten the Wax fruit, pilfered from the cold, dead hands of a traveling merchant, his pride only grew.

And why wouldn't it?

For starters, ever since a he was a teenager he was an assassin, an agent of espionage and assassination, capable of performing anything, even under the ever-watching eye of the marines. His power had only grown since then, and ever since then, after he had aligned himself with an underground criminal empire, none he had met on his path could even get near him, much less have an inkling of a chance to even try to graze him.

So when he had been placed on the "melodramatic, extravagant money-laundering team", as he quoted himself, he had quickly grown bored and decided to work more on his, well, ... let's just go with, "creative" side.

And of course in predictable human fashion, he had grown too prideful. Too reliant on the work of others, and spent his days faffing about.

So when a rubbery brat with dreams of unrealistic quality and his crew decided to drop in one day, he had expected a mild annoyance from them, and a new set of statues to fill his collection.

What he did not expect, was a complete and utter annihilation of his candle maker in under (Ironically) three minutes.

After the long-nosed sniper had realized fire was his only weakness, everything quickly went south. Without ample time to concentrate on restraining the others, his fight between himself and Luffy had turned from a simple, mundane, grievously boring task, into a complete and utter beatdown. As the battle (If one could call such a one-sided fight as such), raged on (Mainly him trying to block the constant barrage of flying steel, fists, and projectiles aimed at him) everything he had known was (Quite literally) going up in flames. The destruction of his beloved candle set, the plans for capturing the giant pair, and to top it all off, his favourite china tea set.

That last one just seemed to be the salt on the inflamed, infectious gaping hole, that one could call a wound.

Where the hell was Goldenweek or the damn duo when you needed them?

She stared at him from the tree branch that she currently perched on. She was completely clueless about why he had blood all over him, but that didn't matter now. Her legacy as an assassin was at stake. She had never let a target leave alive, and she sure as hell wasn't going to do so now.

But through all that,

"WHERE ARE YOU ?!"

She still flinched at the sound of his voice. There was something beneath his tone, something... unstable. The type of unstable found in patients checked into psychiatric wards or mental asylums.

However, the man had no qualms about it.

"That does it." He muttered, gracefully diving from his branch.

He reached out, planning to kill rather than subdue. Mr. 5 was nothing if not a practical man, and so he went for his neck, content on obliterating it. His severed head would be enough for proof. As he fell, he caught the end of his sentence-

"-break all your bones."

The kid must have felt the air shift, because his neck hairs bristled, slowly turning around to see the commotion.

Too late.

Far too late.

His fingers closed around his neck, and they smirked in unison.

Checkmate.

"PALM BOMB!"

.

.

.

But nothing happened!

"…"

He blinked twice.

"PALM BOMB!"

But nothing happened!

"…..."

He blinked trice.

"PALM-MOTHER-FUCKING-BOMB!"

But nothing happened!

"….."

The silence was brutal as they stared at each other. One filled with confusion, and one of amusement.

.

.

.

The child's fist smashing his face in was more than enough to fill in that void.

As his ballistic body blew backward into a tree, the child tilted his head amused, and strolled up to him, smiling at his groaning figure.

"Fucks wrong with you?"

He laid there, moaning in pain.

"Nothing? Really?"

"KILOSHIFT!"

And that was when the world erupted.

KA-BOOM!

At some point, the adrenaline had pushed me over the edge, dulling _ senses to only see things in front of _. For a brief moment, that was a man who had attempted to explode my head off, whom _ had punched at least a meter backward. So naturally, _ 'd completely forgotten about the woman who could turn into a meteorite with a single thought.

Oh silly me!

She burst out from the crater, and without further ado, _ went to meet her head on. _ ducked under the enhanced punch, taking advantage of her exposed frame, and slammed an elbow into her side. _ felt the framework under her clothes flex inwards, and the rewarding sound of elbow against ribs.

"Guh!"

She staggered away, and the man came next. He looked worse for wear, but that didn't stop him. He came blasting at my face, but _ had already moved around it, aiming a kick at his legs. Kudos to where it was due, the would-be assassin switched to a physical attack without blinking, swinging his arm down against my leg.

_ grunted.

_ blocked a punch towards my head with my forearm, but he grabbed on, firing a knee into _ ribcage. Feinting to stumble backward, he took the bait and pressed the attack. Far too late, he realized it was a ruse and was rewarded with a kick to the shins. He tumbled backward, landing painfully onto the soil.

_ opened up the bo, raising it above my head. Swinging downwards-

"KILOSHIFT!"

A fist collided with my side.

THACK!

_ was thrown across the terrain, landed on a flat rock and rolled off the side. - wheezed, wincing at the pain rapidly blossoming in my arm. 5 threw his exploding snot that _ had to roll to dodge, and as _ done so, Valentine rammed her entire frame into me, repaying me back in full, with interest.

_ was thrown backward. Breaking branches and upturning dirt, _ hit a trunk, spewing obscenities.

Growling at the pair, _ realized _ was outmatched.

So _ quickly shifted tactics.

"KYUSHU MODE- GOMU-GOMU!"

The pain faded to a dull throbbing immediately. Giving my skin an experimental stretch, _ let it snap back, the sound echoing through the forest.

A voice rang out through the clearing.

"VALENTINE! TWELVE METERS NORTHWEST! SKYDIVE HIM!"

My eyes widened as _ realized the pair's intentions.

"KILOSHIFT!"

_ raised my forearm, confident that _ could take it. Physical attacks were useless against rubber, so that was fine.

Through the congregation of leaves, the bombshell blonde prepared to blast a barrage of blunt attacks to bludgeon my brain.

As my forearm raise, so did my eyes.

Right up her dress.

Roight up dem lacy undergarments.

Yellow.

Yellow and frills.

Yellow and frills and lemons.

.

.

.

.

.

_ couldn't help myself.

Even in a life or death situation.

"AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA! LEMON PANTIES? AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

She flushed a lovely red hue.

Tripping over branches, she immediately crossed her legs together, attempting to keep whatever modesty she had left. Attempting to lay waste via glare, she turned her gaze towards her partner, who was (Quite obviously) holding back laughter.

"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING ABOUT? KILL HIM NOW, OR IM GOING TO KILL YOU INSTEAD!"

_ sobered up instantly.

From my hunched position, out of the corner of my eye, _ saw a man running towards me.

Ah, shit.

He jumped at me, aiming to finish the fight with a kick to the head, content on splattering the insides of my head across twelve acres of forest.

_ raised an arm to block it, but quick thinking led him to jump off it, aiming for a punch instead.

_ rolled sideways, and got up, blocking yet another attack from him. Darting forward, _ caught him off guard and sent the pair tumbling into one another.

But as _ pushed him away, 5 lashed out in response, striking me in the chest.

"Guh!"

"Gah!"

_ fell on my back, using my legs to kick Valentine over as she tried yet again to crush me under her sole. Flying through the air, she somehow aligned herself in mid-air and kicked off from a tree.

My eyes widened at her amazing feat of acrobatics, shutting the bo as _ tumbled towards her, just barely missing _. As she flew overhead, _ opened the bo, letting the steel slam into her stomach and whilst changing her trajectory, grinning at the sight of her heaving up air as she was sent flying away.

It would have been hilarious, except for the itsy, bitsy, teeny, tinnnny detail of that -had forgotten about the crazy bomb guy.

"NOSE FANCY CANNON!"

BOOOM!

"JESUS-FUCKIN-CHRIST!"

No matter what happened afterward, we will never admit we screamed.

It was a shout.

A manly shout.

Just a coincidentally, high pitched, MANLY, shout.

The ground in front of me exploded, bits of dirt and roots flying into my face.

"GAH!"

Brushing at my eyes, _ attempted to clear my vision, only to find a fist ramming into me.

Into my arm.

Heh.

"PALM BOMB!"

Had _ not neutralize the effect, my arm would have been blown off. With the Gomu Gomu mode still on, the force behind the fist dissipated instantly, leaving him in a very vulnerable spot.

"What the-"

A single moment of hesitation.

_ grinned.

Boys and men reading this, Look away.

My arm lashed out, grabbing him by the wrist,

"GIGOT!"

and _ swept my leg into his kneecaps, tripping him up.

As he fell, _ tried to, and _ really did,

"COLLIER SHO-SHIT!"

My leg lashed out, and had he not blocked the blow with his forearms, the appendage would have hit his stomach.

A perfectly executed block, forearms taking the brunt of the initial impact, then a quick motion downwards to knock the opponent off balance.

But seeing how the kick had been aimed upwards into his ribcage, instead of hitting the ground, the foot went sideways.

.

.

.

Right into his crotch.

She drew ragged breaths, lungs burning up as she leaned against a lucky tree that had somehow survived the initial onslaught of bombs and literal bombshell blondes. The firefight had quickly turned into a fistfight, albeit one with powers, and she couldn't stay in one spot for too long, for the chances of being caught in the crossfire. She quickly scaled up the tree, hoping that an aerial view would have been a more effective spot to hide and plan her next move.

Every hit was as swift as the last and had the potential to quickly turn the tides of battle.

In the beginning, it was clear that the duo was hesitant to attack, seeing how the kid had neutralized the initial attack. They weren't sure how to react to someone able to defend the (Previously) guaranteed kill-shot they had, and how that had done little to faze him.

He had grasped his neck, and she flinched backward, bracing herself for the shower of blood to spurt out of his neck.

Instead, they stood there awkwardly, like deer's caught in the headlights of an oncoming carriage.

And judging on how far Mr.5 travelled, she could assume he hit like one too, watching him pirouetting away like a drunken ballerina.

The boy laughed, and strolled up to him, leering right into his face.

Then the sky fell.

Of course, when she meant sky, she meant the 300-ton woman.

.

.

.

.

.

And yes, she did just call her fat.

KA-BOOM!

When the dust had finally settled, the fight had already begun. The only thing that went through her mind was the easily distinguishable fighting styles between them. Her only partner had been Mr. 3, and while it was fascinating to watch him use his powers, it was repulsive to be forced to paint over the casts of his victims. She was supposed to be his support, calling out attack patterns and blind spots, leaving him to capitalize with such information. That was the whole point of the whole "partner" thing.

Then again, there weren't a whole lot of counters to being encased in steel wax.

She was now quite apathetic to her partner's actions, and she tried to find new stimuli for herself. Being able to predict and counter opponents moves was one of the more enjoyable parts of her job, and the lack of targets in the recent months had dulled her senses. This fight was more than enough to satisfy her.

Mr. 5 and Valentine were working in tandem, trying to keep the boy from recovering, not giving him a chance to gather his senses. Mr.5's blows seemed ineffective, and the pair worked around that, weaving in and out of combat to catch the boy off guard. Needless to say; they were an efficient team, slowly but surely chipping away at their target.

On the other hand, the boy seemed to be on par with the duo. Weaving in an amalgamation of fighting techniques she had never seen before, firing in elbows and bo swings into his constant barrage of punches, it seemed as if he was holding out against them. While that seemed unlikely, it was most likely due to his attacks being brutally overkill, swinging wildly into them, of which were likely to break or fracture whatever body part he was aiming for. His fighting style was as substantial as he was feral, and whenever he had overextended too far, the duo punished his mistakes with well-timed blows.

Oddly enough, he kept shifting tactics, changing attack patterns and his style of attacking. For a few seconds, he would jump into the fray, swinging wildly with his bo, then completely abandon his weapon, switch to his elbows and knees and resume trying to slam them into the ground. And if that wasn't enough, we would switch yet again, only to defend himself against the hammering blows from the duo, waiting out on them to tire out, not even attempting to counter-attack.

She followed the fight, haphazardly grabbing the vines that hung from the uppermost foliage as she swung from tree to tree. It was ... weird, to say the least, but it was working for him.

Picking ourselves from the ground, we all panted in exertion, trying to bring back some measure of strength into our respective limbs.

Scrutinizing the opposition, our eyes met.

The silence laid thick upon the battleground, as we stared at each other, waiting, just waiting for the foe to make a move.

Perhaps some small talk would throw them off-guard.

Giving them a shit eating smile, "So how's life treating you?"

"..."

"..."

BAM!

The pair fell to the ground.

Gotta love anime logic.

Jabbing his finger at me, "The hell's wrong with you kid ?!"

The woman followed on, "Haven't you been in a real fight before?"

_ could only chuckle at their shocked forms. Rolling my eyes, _ tried the recall the last time _ had ever had this much fun. This was a life worth living. The promise of adventure, a chance to break the laws of reality, and the prospect of delaying the inevita-

A whiny voice broke me out of my stupor.

"What exactly are you kid?"

_ paused and glanced at the woman.

"We saw what you did back there in the forest, and it was nothing like we had seen before." She seemed to steel herself before continuing. Even a good ten meters away, _ could see her face, scrutinizing me. It was almost as if she was hesitating, before proceeding onto displaying her next train of thought.

"-Par for one time. The only time we had seen such use was through a body, left as a message to us."

Now, this seemed interesting. What nice half-baked backstory could this be?

Mr.5 quickly realized what she was getting at.

"In Alabasta, we, ...well, ... miscalculated, to say the least, and fell under attack by a regiment of mercenaries. We were badly wounded, and we were holed up in a safe house."

"..."

Christ. _ was mistaken. This was boring.

"We were down on our last rations-"

Borrrriiingggg...

"-without a way to communicate-"

Jesus Christ….

BOOOORRRRIIIIINGGGGG...

"-slowly descended into a state of-"

Yadda you, yiddi ya. SKIP!

"SKDAJFHKAJDBFAMSHGFKASDHJ-"

Pause.

Shit, too far.

Rewind...

And go!

"-and so in our rash decision making, we had no other choice but to make a scene."

A steely voice interrupted her.

"We shouldn't be talking about this."

She turned to face her partner, only to find his arms crossed and a stony expression on his face.

"Normally I would let you prat on whatever you have going on in your mind, but this is too far. I thought we wouldn't have to ever talk about this ever again, and yet you-"

She glared at him, effectively silencing him.

Gritting her teeth, "Don't you see what I'm getting at here? Remember the body?"

He tilted his head, clearly confused at her rambling.

She sighed. "A body, dried up like the desert, somehow, still ALIVE, gasping at us to not screw up again, APPEARED FROM THE DESERT ITSELF. Then out of nothing, A SANDSTORM, out of all things just shows up out of nowhere, and just eviscerates the messenger, turning him into a VERY SPECIFIC black dust. "

He slowly turned his gaze towards mine, then back towards his companion.

He stood there, confusion written on his face, trying to decipher what his partner just said.

Apparently, the ball dropped.

"... I hope you're not implying what I think you are."

A lone pterodactyl cawed above us.

.

.

.

She nodded her head solemnly.

"But he's just a kid! There's no way he could possibly, remotely even attempt to even be him, right ?!"

Ah, the pronoun game. Foe of backstories, this mighty beast has collected a plethora of sins from all.

Fuck it.

"HEY HAG!"

Whipping her head around, she glared, scowling at -.

Flamboyantly shaking - hands, - gave her a shit eating smile. "Right here you know! The answers to all your problems, just standing here. In front of you!"

In a much more controlled attitude than - had ever seen before, she turned apathetic to the small plight. In complete seriousness, she turned towards - looking - dead in the eye, and uttered the following question.

"Are you Mr. 0 ?"

.

.

.

Silence.

This time, _ kept my voice to a single tone, trying to keep it as aloof as possible.

"And why, dear Valentine, would you, say such a thing?"

She huffed in response. "Just in case, Sir," adding the 'Sir' in a tone that implied she would shoot herself in the foot, rather than to keep calling - that.

"-as much as I hate to admit it, you seem capable enough to take us both on easily enough, and an ability that seems to be taking the life force of living things."

She paused to stare at -, only getting a raised eyebrow in response.

"Your methods for have been, … , unorthodox, but after working for you for so long, I've begun to realize the scope of your empire. I believe you execute your plans as effectively as possible, so every mundane task that you assign us would have been part of a larger scheme." She took a unsteady breath,

"I assume that since you employ the help of child assassins, such as Ms. Goldenweek,-"

The look in her eyes turned steely, guarded, but intense too, and it feels as if she were tearing into - soul.

"-the supposed choice of entertaining the thought of our esteemed leader being a teenager himself wouldn't be so far-fetched."

Silence.

None of us spoke, each trying to gauge the others reaction, some break of character, or a tell.

Neither Mr.5 nor _ had any idea how to react to such a statement, to the sheer audacity to even mention his codename. He was like a deity to the underground, unwavering in his orders, merciless to his foes, and always hidden behind that mysterious code name of his. His anomality brought his status to rival fleet admirals.

Mr. 0.

His own name was a mystery itself, some entertaining the thought of him being nothing but a hoax, just an belief that sprang up from someone's dreams, his name being nothing but a exaggerated ghost of a dead ideological ruler.

_ knew the truth. And they did not.

Not going to lie, the thought of accepting the role of being their boss seemed to appeal to me. My consciousness seemed empty; par from the screaming, and my bruised ribs seemed to agree. _ could end it all now, with just a simple discussion.

Peace would reign over war.

With right planning, Vivi could have been smuggled into the city, and once she had the chance to speak with the populace, exposing the lies, fraud and strings that were all controlled by Mr. 0. Under a facade, - could sow chaos and confusion into the corrupted ranks of Alabasta's military, and in the rebel army, exposing the spies who had weaved their way into the armies under his orders. By the time he would realize what had happened, Crocodile would have been powerless to stop the onslaught of the populace, his ex-followers, now no longer deceived by the utopia that he promised them, and the full military might of the marines.

The only conflict that would arise would be between Luffy, and the real Mr. 0.

And we all know how that turned out. It was the perfect plan.

But in doing so, it would fry my brain. There were too many uncertainties, gears in the clockworks of this plan. Too many variables that were decided upon pre-ordained structure of the main book. This could backfire- even bringing the schedule forwards, detonating the bomb earlier than in canon.

_ shook myself out of my stupor, turning my gaze back towards the pair.

"No."

They breathed out a collective sigh, and as if an invisible plug had been lifted, tension quickly drained out the conversation.

"Crocodile, the Shichibukai, is."

"…."

"….what ?"

His voice came out like a frightened mouse, all high-pitched and squeaky-like, and the blood in his face seemed to had GTFO'ed.

Her voice seemed angry, (Oh, I WONDER WHY?), and _ suspected if not for the shock currently paralyzing her, - had no doubt she would be attempting to add yet another set of crimes, one that was just a tad bit close to the term 'human rights violation' ,whatever that means, to her growing list.

What a sweet, violent woman.

"Oh god,ohgodohgodohgodohgodgodgodgodgod-"

"We were working for a, -a fucking Shichibukai, mind fucking you, this entire time ?!"

"-ohgodohgodohgodohgodg-"

"And out of all people, fucking, Crocodile ?!"

"-ohgodgodgodgodgod."

"WHY WOULD YOU EVEN TELL THIS TO US ?! WHAT FUCKING PURPOSE WOULD THIS ACHIEVE ?! ON WH-"

_ interrupted her.

"Panic, confusion, and to put it in a better term, to enlist your help."

"..."

Oh dear. _ may have broken them. Shocked look, eyes widened, even more blood draining from their face, hmmhmm. Yep. Definitely broke them.

"Hello? Yooo hoo? Anyone ther-"

"SHUT IT!" She took a deep breath, calming herself.

"Why the fuck would we even consider helpin-"

"The fact you've paused is proof enough that even you're curious about my preposition."

She shook herself out of her stupor, "Or, the shock just finished its most recent course, and we could just blow your brains out right now."

"Then you morons would have to face Crocodile alone, and as you recall, he is very, VERY, partial to whomever has this knowledge."

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, an audible 'clonk' sound echoing through the clearing.

"So how about it ? You don't get to die a horrible, Horrible, death by one of the most bloodthirsty people on earth, a chance at redemption, and you get the added benefit of me, NOT, ahem, ripping you two a new one."

Of course, _ knew that was highly unlikely, judging on how my body ached, as well as the painful throbbing pain had started to build up on my rubber arm. Sooner, rather than later, _ would start to get a massive blowback from the power.

Their faces turned pale, and they uttered a single question.

"Why us?"

_ shrugged.

"Got bored."

"…Who the hell even are you ? You've known more things about baroque works than any other agent I've ever known, you know things that only Mr.0-, eugh, Crocodile, could possibly know, and you don't even use that knowledge to even try to help the princess? Just because you're BORED?"

"Well, you see, I'm probably just a college student who got bored or a middle-aged person who... also got bored, or that I'm in a hospital suffering from PTSD, and high as fuck, seeing the quality of these hallucinations."

_ grinned.

"You got all that?"

OH BOI! EVEN MORE VEINS!

She paused, rage temporarily flaring down as she looked down at her partner's hand, which was currently perched on her shoulder.

"Don't listen to him. He's just trying to rile you up."

They turned to look at me.

"You may talk the tough talk, but the kid gloves are off."

Menacingly cracking her knuckles, "Let's see what you're made of."

"Well then, if you would like to know, this bat-" _ gestured to the blood covered stick which _ was currently holding. "-is made of copper, nickel and a healthy dose of iron." _ guested to the duo. "However, YOUR body is made up of calcium, water, proteins and judging from your attire, a dab of self-loathing."

My grin turned feral.

"Let's see what breaks first."

Turns out, their bones broke first.

Who would have guessed?

A single misstep and an arm reached out too far, was a mistake. A single one was enough for me to bring the staff sideways, crunching bone.

"MY ARM!"

Now, most people would have flinched at the intensity of his shout, or how much pain that was packed into that phrase. Or the obvious edge of bone that poked beneath his skin, like an inflamed wasp sting.

He was not like others.

Instead, he wondered why the hell the assassins had fancy clothing on. And how they were able to chase down targets dressed like that.

He was innocent in ways like that.

Taking a stance- "Gomu Gomu no Pistol !"

The pair froze up, unable to comprehend what was about to happen. His arm shot out like a cannon, splintering tree bark everywhere, continuing to travel towards until it collided with-

.

.

.

What.

The.

Fuck.

"You've got to be shitting me."

When you throw a punch, you expect it to hit. You expect the fist to strike flesh, or to hit something. With a rubber arm, some rules of logic and reality cease to exist. But the point still stands.

When you punch someone, you expect it to hit.

What you don't expect, is your limb stretching over a stream, looping over a tree, and landing neatly in front of the adversary, just like a hand wrapped gift.

"..."

"..."

_ stared at each other for a moment, their eyes flickering from my outstretched arm, then to me.

The split moment passed.

"Oh for fuck's sake-"

The pair latched on and pulled.

They pulled hard.

"OH SHI-OW! -IIIIII- GODDAMNIT! -IIIIIII- FUCK ME SIDEWAYS! -IIIIIITTTT!"

"STAY THE HELL DOWN!"

Blows ran across the boy's frame, assailants kicking and punching him into submission, jubilant on repaying the embarrassment and stabs at their pride that he had inflicted upon him. All he could do was block his head, riding out the pain.

To the pair's surprise, he only grimaced, as if their blows were nothing to him.

So he shot him.

He cried out in pain, before being cut off. He curled up, silently screaming his heart out, clawing at his stomach as if he was trying to tear something out of himself. He tried grasping at their feet, but they shuffled away, apathetically looking down at him.

His mouth was moving, but nothing came out.

Something was glowing inside.

Seeming uninterested, she kicked him again.

That only made things worse.

From the gunshot wound from his leg, light started pouring out, a violent, angry red that seemed to be originating from his heart, blood pulsating beneath his skin, turning a sickly rust-red that began pulsating, not unlike a bomb.

Mr. 5's eyes widened, recognition flickering on his face. Surprise and horror soon followed, as he realized what he had done.

"GET DOWN!"

He tackled her, trying to cover as much of himself over her body.

"..."

"And what, you complete fucking moron, was this supposed to achieve?"

In due anime fashion, as he pushed her, he had grabbed her by her breasts.

His face slowly turned a lovely shade of crimson red, his deadpanned look still staring at her…, assets.

"…"

"YOU PIECE OF SH-"

KA-BOOM!

He gaped at the clearing around him. The boy had somehow, by some hand of fate, utilized his power.

The explosion had come from him- he was certain about that, but he never experienced a blowback of this much power before, par from when he had first eaten the rotten thing. He was certain that that was his fruits doing, the only difference being was the force behind the explosion. When he had used it, the blowback had been the size of a small neighbourhood, thankfully evacuated, but the boy's blast had only been a few meters wide.

Nonetheless, it was still devastating.

He looked back at his partner, seemingly dazed from the explosion. He had shielded her, and had it not have been his immunity to explosions, he was certain they would have been eviscerated.

How the hell did he get that power?

"You're pathetic."

He whipped around, hand igniting before he even though about striking him.

The boy grasped his hand, literally diffusing the situation.

There was no mistake of it now- he didn't mess up his attack, the boy had somehow stopped it, using whatever powers he had. His fist seemed numb, those icy cold fingers that seemed to seep into the pores of his skin, and he whipped his hand away, fumbling for his gun, backing away as he had his revelation. He was too dangerous to face head on, better if he had regrouped his thoughts and repositioned the both of them onto higher ground-

"Pathetic." He sneered, wiping the blood from his nose. "I actually believed that you would have killed me. I mean, think about it! A high calibre assassin who has the ability to cause explosions with his very breath couldn't even kill a teenager with the element of surprise!" He chuckled darkly, striding up to him as he began flexing his right hand. "I suppose life isn't as grand as you think it is." He paused for a moment, scrutinizing at the smoke that encircled them. "Let's clean this up, shall we?"

"Expand."

The smoke that had surrounded the pair vanished in an instance, but that wasn't the problem.

His arm was.

He gasped at the colossal size of the kid's arm, growing to sizes even larger than the rubber brat had ever achieved. Veins bulging on the surface, he could see the muscles swelling beneath the surface. The fist had smoke encircling and steaming off it, letting out little whistles as gas rushed out. But it was clear that he didn't have complete control over his power- there were too many ripples on the epidermis, minute tears in the skin, and with a gunshot wound, he could see the kid straining to keep upright.

He tried to gasp, clutching at his throat; but for some strange reason, he couldn't breathe. Not out of fear, but for the lack of oxygen.

"You've had your chance."

He flung his fist backward, taking a stance. Left leg forward, right leg back, fist steadily angled in the air. He recognized it immediately. A casting punch. One he used on a daily basis. A forward motion of the shoulders, causes the bent arm to whip forward to the opponent. If it missed, you were fucked. If it hit, they were fucked. In this case, he was the fuckee. Funny how he was normally the fucker.

Oh, fuck.

"VAULTBREAKER. Mode: Smoke."

.

.

.

.

.

He saw the fist first.

For a split second, he thought that he had missed.

For a split second, he thought it had done nothing.

For a split second, he thought he was going to be all right.

Only for a split second.

.

.

.

.

.

Time, the cruel mistress that it was, pressed forward, and everything resumed as it was.

First, he felt the force travel from his fist to his abdomen.

Second, he felt what he thought was his stomach rupturing.

Third, he felt what he knew were his bones breaking.

Fourth, he felt his head slamming into the tree behind him, breaking it, granting him blissful unconsciousness.

BOOOOM!

_ shakily stood in the same spot, staring at the utter and complete destruction that had been inflicted upon the woods before me,

"YOU BASTARD!"

A sharp crack filled the air.

Screaming followed thereafter, an unholy howl of pain and suffering.

My screaming.

_ fell, leg clearly bent at a unnatural angle, bone jutted out below the knee, white jagged end cutting through the skin like a hot knife through butter.

CHRIST! CHRIST ON A FUCKING PIKESTAFF! It would be a miracle from FUCKING GOD! IF I COULD EVER WALK AGAIN!

The adrenaline slowly wore off, leaving me in a state of pain and confusion. _ had bitten my tongue, in a desperate attempt to squeeze out whatever reserves of adrenaline I had left in my body. Mud and grit had hardened along my skin, raw pink flesh revealing itself as it scraped off as _ crawled away on my elbows.

Fuck pride.

She kicked me again, and _ had to bite down on my tongue to stop myself from screaming even further.

It was unbearable. I couldn't even tell what was hurting anymore.

" YOU THINK YOU CAN COME AND BARGE INTO OUR BUSINESS, HUMUILATE ME, AND STILL HAVE THE BALLS TO-"

_ cut her off in my head. From the dull throbbing in my head, to the stabbing sensation in my leg, to the outraised cries of my ribs, it seemed as if they had all banded together as a committee to try to prevent me to stop inflicting such bodily harm upon- eugh, ow…. myself. Now a deranged woman screaming her fucking head off ?

Unlike most people, _ had stopped giving a shit, and had filtered out the pain to the a section of my brain reserved for perverse and morbid thoughts.

Didn't work. Why did nothing ever work.

Another bout of screaming lightly pricked my eardrums, and We turned around-

PAIN.

BLANK.

PAIN.

NOTHING.

BUT.

PAIN.

"He's seizing!"

"Give him twenty grams of lorazepam and put on his side. Tell the sister that we're putting him into surgery ahead of schedule."

"-LED. HER!" `

His roar came crashing through the jungle, a guttural bellow that was filled with his anguish and grief. His sunglasses were knocked askew, and _ could see his irises.

Well, the lack of them anyways.

Instead of eyes, he had literal flames glowing in his sockets, fire dancing within the confines of their cage. They threatened to spread, but the howling gales that surrounded them convinced them otherwise. Little hisses could be heard as he stood there, obviously blinking back tears.

_ blinked, trying to figure out what in the flying fuck, had just happened.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

That train of thought derailed and fell into the abyss, as his fist connected with – abdomen with what felt like sufficient force to stun a rampaging Luffy. _ felt my ribs shift inwards, spewing curses as they buckled underneath the force.

One definitely snapped.

THWACK!

_ could barely breathe as I sampled the exquisite taste of coppery blood, mixed with in with the dirt.

"LOOK AT ME!"

Grasping – by the corner of – shirt, he slammed me against a tree with so much force, - could feel the force vibrating within – bones. Both the tree and – groaned, a choir of agony. He switched his grip, and pulled – up by the roots of – hair.

_ screamed. Nearly blacking out, _ slowly slumped onto the ground, a weak grip on the tree preventing me from so. _ faintly noticed a shadowy outline of a man, his palm igniting a wonderful reddish hue, as he reeled backwards. _ briefly felt my heartbeat quicken, blood pounding through my ears.

WAKE UP!

His fist flew, and _ let my weak grip on the tree dissipate.

The fist imbedded itself into the wood, and cursing began anew as he tried pulling it out. A faint rumble, and shrieking followed, alongside several loud THUMPS.

Somebody groaned, and _ finally looked up, to see none other than a certain child, staring at Mr.5. It seemed as if she had fallen from somewhere, most likely from the branches above, when he had missed and shook the tree with his punch. They were staring at each other, in bewilderment in just what the fuck happened.

They stood apart, Mr.5 rubbing his head a few meters away from where Goldenweek had probably slammed into him, cushioning her fall as he got knocked away.

_ grinned.

NO! DON'T YOU FUCKING DA-

_ ignored the screaming and grabbed her.

She shrieked in pain, "LET GO OF ME!"

_ slammed her head into the ground, eyes unflinching with – gaze with him.

"You get near me again, and she'll lose more than just blood."

He was deathly quiet, his eyes twitching as he eyed – and the girl.

And to the surprise to both of them, he laughed. A genuine guffaw, neither mocking nor contemptuous, each ringing tone filling the air.

_ blinked slowly, trying to make sense of what he was doing.

He was laughing. As _ literally held his comrade's life in my own two hands. He was laughing.

What?

He wiped away tears of mirth, and took out a pair of sunglasses, taking care to brush off lint from the lenses.

He smiled calmly.

"I don't care."

"EAT THIS! FULL-BODY BOMU-BOMU!"

"NO!"

MY; Not HIM, But MY own voice came crashing through, the other slamming back into the murky depts of my subconscious where it came from, and I blinked at the scene in front of me.

Oh no.

Reflexes kicked in. Cards swirled around me.

I pounced forwards, grasping her by the back of her shirt and just FLUNG her backwards, more focused on the-

Pain. Just pain.

Nothing else. Just pain.

I couldn't feel anything else. Just pain.

I couldn't think, I couldn't see, I couldn't even breathe. Just Pain.

I heard something. Just Pain.

It-it was familiar. It was …... screaming. Just Pain.

Wait. Just Pain.

Who was screaming? Just Pain.

You.

Me.

JUST PAIN.

The blast had knocked his senses out. Fire had engulfed his body.

He seemed surprised.

Blinking dumbly at his own hands, it seemed as if he didn't register he was on fire.

She screamed, her eye enflamed and burning beneath her fingers as she tried, so, SO desperately just to MAKE IT STOP!

He fell to his knees, staring at the girl beneath him. The horror and concern faded away, leaving only a blank stare into her own.

.

.

.

And that was when his screaming started.

He heard the explosion first.

That was enough for him to kick the feather-rats one last time, pick up the hourglass, and start running towards the battle. The thought of his nakama was uncomfortable enough, but coupled with the mere possibility of his Nami-swan or Vivi-sama getting injured?

Now that was heart-stopping.

The horrible, horrible gut-wrenching silence came next, then the screaming.

Thank god it was one of the bold-headed morons.

He had been going the wrong way. Stumbling onto the dead part of the forest was bad enough, enough to bring back memories of his past. War-torn battlefields, bodies strewn around, bones bleached until they were unrecognizable. Hell, had he not been familiarized with his shitty famil- caretakers type of warfare, the scene could have been mistaken as one of theirs.

The grass, once a vibrant healthy green, had been reduced to husks of their former being. The trees and the ground had been drained of color, nothing but a dulled out grey, cracked and crumbling. Even with their military might, it would have taken days for even their most potent chemicals to ravage the land as such. So, if it took his caretakers days to bring ruin to areas like these, how the hell could one of the shitty brats do this within hours?

As he carried on forwards, he suddenly flinched, frowning at something. As if he had passed some invisible barrier, the air seemed to be thicker, a mild weight weighing down upon his lungs.

It wasn't painful, just... merely uncomfortable.

He took a moment to discard his cigarette, glancing down at the trail that had been recently trampled upon, if the upturned roots and singed tips of grass had anything to say. Pushing through the mangrove, he suddenly stumbled, as his foot sank into the ground.

"What the hell?"

He bent down and grabbed a handful of the stuff, peering at it closely.

It was dirt. What else did he expect? Dark, rough on his fingers, and would most likely stain his suit. But on closer inspection, instead of clumping together like normal dirt, it seemed brittle to the touch and seemed more like sand. It crumbled beneath his touch and became something even less than dust. None of the signs were good.

He paused to re-gain his bearings, turning to inspect the trail.

Upturned roots meant something hit the ground with immense force, probably the lady that Moss-brain had fought. What was her power again? Ah, yes, changing her weight, or something like that.

Singed roots meant fire, which probably meant Mr. 5.

Apparently, the message of getting repeatedly kicked in the face wasn't enough of an deterrent to go fuck right off. The path had been split in two, the individual powers clearly dominating each trail path. One was on fire, and the other had craters within them. Without hesitation, he went down the latter.

Any chance to see a beautiful woman in her prime and in her own element (even if such element was beating people up), was a gift to man's eyes. Of course, Sanji was as such, and had no problem. Even if he did have some fantasies about beautiful women beautiful up a certain swordsman, he would never admit it to said swordsman face. So if there was just a chance, EVEN just a little? To see and witness that miracle, that would make him content for a very long time.

He walks through the foliage and notices the blood.

Broken branches and craters littered the floor, a clear sign of a struggle-

Oh god.

Nononononohgodwhynonononono.

He stumbles away, his light jog turning into a full blown-out sprint.

The sight of it haunts his memory, a bloody mess of that- oh god. He can't even think about it. He crosses back into another clearing and stares.

Mr.5s back had been turned away from him, leaving him with a clear view of his crewmate.

He let out an involuntary gasp, pretty sure that he had just forgotten how to breathe properly.

His right eye was welded shut, swollen beyond belief. Angry bruises littered across his frame, black and blue blotches that littered onto his body. Patches of his skin seemed to have been torn off completed, raw flesh shinning brilliantly in the sunlight, in various shades of pink and red. He could tell that it even pained for him to sit, judging by his posture, hunched over, clenched teeth as he held his chest, the uneven wheezes that poorly substitutes for his breathing. A wild blow from the girl goes astray, hitting him directly in the face, and he merely grimaces at his injuries. He spots the bone protruding from his leg, and it takes all his might not to cry out.

But his eye.

Dear god. His eye.

He flinched from the look in his eye. Had his left eye not been glowing, leaving a faint trail of red smoke that followed his movements, he wouldn't have noticed the minute details that just seemed, … off about him. Deranged and savage, but with a fragment of cunningness, hidden right behind that dead look of his. Erratic twitching followed suit, seemingly waiting for a trigger to kickstart his motion. He didn't even seem to register that he was holding a young girl hostage, nor that his foot was held together by a few lone fibres of tendon and muscle.

That was too far. An enemy she may be, but nonetheless, still a fucking child.

That sick fuck.

Mr.5's voice broke through the clearing, startling him out of his thoughts.

"EAT THIS! FULL-BODY BOMU-BOMU!"

Oh no.

He ran faster, even faster than he ever had ever done before, legs crying out in symphony.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion.

Mr.5's hands combusted, flames flickering into being from nothingness. He turned transparent for a moment, and out of the corner of his vision, he could see his body illuminated in the shadowy region of the forest like a miniature sun, glowing with energy, his body hunched over, as if he was trying to physically trying to hold himself back. He curled up even further, ending up in a foetus position, pulsating from flesh and blood into a glowing inferno.

For a moment, all was still.

Then he slammed his fiery fists into his chest, and the fires of hell broke loose.

The fire ate away at his body, racing from his chest into every nook and cranny of his body like conflagration set upon dry bark. For a moment he turned into a inky abyss, nothing lighting up beneath his skin but a single tendril of flame. The flame swiftly grew, ripping away at his form until it reached the boundaries of its physical prison, reeling back for a split second, then burst through.

It didn't stop.

KA-BOOOOOOOOMMM !

His breathing is so loud in his mind and his eyes are blown wide open, and he jerks up his head in time to dodge incoming debris. He coughs when smoke reaches his lungs and something lodges in his throat, and oh my god and holy shit and there was so, so much blood everywhere. He doesn't even notice how uneven his breathing is until he finally hears the screaming.

The child.

He swallows with an audible gulp, not that he could hear it clearly, his head was still ringing, and he stumbles at first, waving his hands in front of his face as black smoke forms a thick soupy mist in front of his vision. He winces at his bruised ribs, but carries on. His vision is blurry, and he paws at them, trying not to irritate them even further.

He hits something and whips his hand away, the sudden intense heat scalding his hand as he blows on it. He cautiously waves his hand directly in front of him, and he's faced with a barrier of some sort. He places both hands on it and shambles forward until his eyes reach the mysterious surface placed before him.

Aligned in a perfect configuration, familiar patterns etched onto the stainless steel, repeating endlessly, he realizes that he is face to face to a literal wall of cards.

Playing cards.


End file.
